CUNY J-School Launches Press

The CUNY Graduate School of Journalism launched an academic press to publish books related to journalism. Dean Stephen Shepard said the new imprint will publish three to five books a year, beginning in 2013.

“We think that publishing more thoughtful, insightful books about journalism at this critical time in the history of news and information is important for journalists, important for writers and for readers,” Shepard said. Four titles are planned for 2013:

  • Distant Witness: Social Media, the Arab Spring and a Journalism Revolution, by Andy Carvin, NPR’s senior strategist for social media, on his use of social networks in reporting the series of Arab uprisings collectively known as the Arab Spring and what has happened since.
  • Fighting for the Press: The Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers, by James Goodale, chief counsel for The New York Times during the Pentagon Papers, reveals the behind-the-scenes stories of the internal debates and the reasoning behind the strategy that emerged.
  • Investigative Journalism in America: A History, by Steve Weinberg, a member of the University of Missouri Journalism School faculty and co-founder of IRE, the association of investigative reporters and editors, is a narrative look at the reporters, publications and stories that drove the development of investigative reporting.
  • The Pleasures of Being Out of Step: Nat Hentoff’s Life in Journalism, Jazz and the First Amendment, is a biography of the noted jazz critic and free speech activist by CUNY Journalism Professor David L. Lewis, a former Daily News reporter and “60 Minutes” producer and associate producer who is also directing a feature-length documentary on Hentoff.


The CUNY Journalism Press will operate in partnership with OR Books, an independent publisher based in New York. The editor is Tim Harper, a visiting professor and writing coach at CUNY. Authors seeking information or offering proposals may reach him through the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism website. “We’re looking for anything about journalism, anything about news and the news media, past, present or future,” Harper said. “We’re interested in skills and how-to books, anthologies, histories, memoirs, anything and everything that adds to what we know about journalism and journalists.”