The media is often held in scorn, gaining reputation for dumbing down, vulgarity, and jingoism: yet media industry is a monopoly which also is respected for its important role. From issues ranging from reporter's privilege and press tabliodization to the media's loss of independence from outside influences, From Watergate To Monicagate traces major issues in media relations and modern journalism and provides insights on new media developments.

This is a definite book for the person who wonders what exactly the government is up to, but it's one I'd only read if you truly want to know. It tells of the beginnings of classification of information in government, and generally tells you all the stuff the government probably doesn't want you to know about how the secret agencies work. This is a must read book. Hurry before it's classified.

The book Banned in the Media is a very important resource for students who are interested in doing a report on any kind of censorship. It gave me a wonderful accounting as to what the media does not tell you. It also let me know about how the Internet is censored and what the future has in store for the internet. Definitely a great knowledge base.

FREE EXPRESSION etc. is encyclopedic in format and alphabetically covers the generally well known cases of attempts to suppress free expression and critical publication in America. Most of what are essentially excerpts of case studies skim over the salient aspects of each case. The good news is that each account is well referenced to original sources.

In its perhaps scholarly attempt to appear to be impartial, this book does not actually present an explicit point of view. Its position is implicit, other than its parochial support in the Preface for free speech and constitutionally guarenteed rights to speak and write without government or other institutionalized suppression. Unlike the content of documentary films dealing with this subject such as TELL THE TRUTH AND RUN by Goldsmith which examines American newspaper self-censorship through the eyes of that great muckraker George Seldes or the even broader perspective in FEAR AND FAVOR IN THE NEWSROOM produced by San Jose Public Televison, FREE EXPRESSION is rather superficial. Certainly, this book is less critically written than those by Robert McChesney which contain both lengthy bibliographies and an American militantly pro-free expression viewpoint.

In this day and age, an expensive book promising to enlighten us about free expression and censorship in America needs to be more than a compendium of textbook cases of incidents of suppression that wound up in court.