Creative Paths to Television Journalism

Jacek Dabala is a professor, novelist, screenwriter, and a former TV and radio journalist. Media, communication, literature and film cover the range of his specialization. He is Head of the Department of Media and Axiology at the Catholic University of Lublin and Head of the Independent Section of Communication Skills in Medicine at the Medical University of Lublin (Poland). He has published, i.a. Mystery and Suspense in Creative Writing (2012).

Contents: The priority of dramaturgy - The essence of media thinking - Plot and suspense in the news - The quasi-dramaturgy localness - Between sound and picture - The changing style of presenting information - Initiative and creativity in television journalism - Affirmation of the art of presentation - The value of TV presenters - Telegenity - Pitfalls - Self-presentation - The Future.

«This is a fascinating book. It looks at television journalism in a wholly different way from anything I have previously encountered. It makes the notion of the dramaturgy of news its central point of reference. And Dabala writes from the perspective of someone who is as comfortable dealing with theories of the media as he is in dealing with the theory and practice of script-writing. This book will make anyone involved in television news - whether as scholars, students, practitioners or just viewers - rethink almost everything.» (Prof. Ivor Gaber, School of Media, Film and Music, University of Sussex, UK)

«The tragedy of television 'journalism' is that we so often need to put that word in quotes. This book explains the nature of TV production in a hyper-connected, high-velocity world of information and news. It helps us understand why TV news, flawed as it tends to be, is nonetheless a vital medium for public understanding - and offers some hope that a new generation of producers, and audiences, can make the medium match its best potential.»
(Prof. Dan Gillmor, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University, USA)

«This new book combines a scholastic approach to TV News with a practical understanding of production and the new pressures bearing down on the industry. As such it combines a real-world understanding with an objective, academic perspective and offers valuable new insights into what is still the most powerful medium for news and information in the world.»
(Prof. Richard Sambrook, Director, Centre for Journalism, Cardiff University, UK)

«This book takes a new and much more comprehensive approach to Television and its production and role in society. It looks at the production of television both as an art form in which how the presentations are done plays a major role in how their messages are understood and as a technical production process. This new, dual approach is critical for our understanding of the roles television and those who appear in it and produce it as well as for its attraction and its impact both in post-Soviet societies and in traditional Western societies».
(Prof. Jane. L. Curry, Department of Political Science, Santa Clara University, USA)

«In an age when the TV business is a global exchange of images and cultural connections, Jacek Dabala has examined the phenomenon with an internationalist's eye. He connects American observers with intellectuals from Europe to examine the dynamics, the ethics and the demands of journalism in the 21st Century. This is the kind of book that demands thinking on the part of young visual journalists and one that can stimulate an interesting debate involving theory and practice.» (Prof. Susan King, Dean, John Thomas Kerr Distinguished Professor School of Journalism and Mass Communication, UNC Chapel Hill, USA)