Vivian did a fine job introducing readers to the history of journalism and relating it to where journalism and mass media has come since those first days of covering the Civil War. Readers should be open minded and consider the ethics and history as they absorb the material for the full benefit of Vivian's work.

This book is utterly basic and not fit for even a community college class, more like a junior high or maybe a high school class. Presumably, it's written for people who don't know what the author is talking about and are completely stupid. The author never fails to bring his own viewpoints into supposedly writing an objective, educational book. My professor confessed that they wouldn't have used this book to teach the class, but that they were taking over the class for the first time from another professor who had used it.

I was taking a mass communication class that used this book, but dropped the class in favor of spending more time working on the school paper. I missed absolutely nothing, and in fact, learned more about mass communication this way.

I bought this book over the weekend and got it on a Wednesday. I love how the expedited shipping is so cheap. The book was very inexpensive as well. It was a used book and I like how they described the exact condition of the book before I bought it so I knew what I was getting. There is also a feature that allowed me to look inside the book virtually.