New Books in Journalism

How “They” See “Us” with editor Madeleine Schwartz

The remarkable political ascent of Donald J. Trump and his sustained grip on a certain segment of American society have given fresh life to a question as old as Tocqueville’s visit to Jacksonian America a century ago: How do foreigners regard America, Americans and the American experiment? I explore this question in a conversation with Madeline Schwartz, founder and editor in chief of The Dial, an online publication. She wrote the Introduction to a collection of essays featuring work commissioned by The Dial, the new book titled How We See It: The World Looks at America in the Age of Trump  [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9798893850222](The New Press, 2026). We discuss perspectives from Italy, Argentina and South Africa, among other places Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices] Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism [https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism]

Dallas Liddle, "News Machines: The Systems of Daily Journalism in Britain, 1785–1885" (Oxford UP, 2026)

British daily newspapers transformed rapidly at the turn of the nineteenth century, ballooning in size and radically reorganizing staffing and production decade by decade. By mid-century, newspapers had grown from the folded single sheets of the previous century to large multi-page broadsheets, so impressive in the quantity of print they held and their speed of production that one of their nicknames was 'the daily miracle'. Traditional news history has overlooked a key fact for understanding this era of news: that Victorian daily newspapers were high-pressure systems. As demand for newspapers outpaced their original production capacity, newspaper organizations began to build complex technical and production mechanisms to continue to grow and compete. As these systems expanded, newspapers became dependent on them, and decisions about how daily journalism should develop began to pass from editorial choice to systemic necessity. The previously untold story of Victorian daily news is that the personalities of editors and owners and the larger social forces at work in that era were not the only (or even primary) drivers of its history. Once set in motion, the systems of Victorian news gained major shaping agency over their own development. Combining deep archival research and traditional historical analysis with modern data mining methods, News Machines: The Systems of Daily Journalism in Britain, 1785–1885 [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9780198994831] (Oxford University Press, 2026) by Dr. Dallas Liddle reconstructs the systemic workings of Victorian daily news in unprecedented detail, offering new and counterintuitive accounts of when and why daily papers expanded, how and why steam-powered printing machines developed, how specialized news discourses evolved, and how newspaper leadership was organized. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book [https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/securing-peace-in-angola-and-mozambique-9781350407930/] focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher [https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/special-series/new-books-with-miranda-melcher], wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices] Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism [https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism]

The Jewish Press Today

In 1897 when the Forverts was founded, the need for a Jewish newspaper—a Yiddish newspaper that is—was self-evident: millions of Yiddish speaking Jewish immigrants needed a reliable daily source of news in their own language. In the first few decades of the 20th century the Yiddish press blossomed in New York, peaking at five different daily papers and an estimated daily readership of approximately one million in New York City alone in the early 1920s. The major form of media for immigrant Jews and their offspring, the Yiddish press provided its readers with everything from international, national, and local news, to original and translated literature, both high and low, literary and theater criticism, politics, humor, advice columns, and more. Yiddish newspapers taught immigrants how to vote and even how to play baseball. Today, nearly 125 years after the first issue of the Forverts, the vast majority of American Jews speak and read English and can get their news from the mainstream English language press. And yet, the Jewish press—now mostly in English—remains an important journalistic outlet for topics of particular interest to the Jewish community. From Jewish TV shows, movies, books, music, and restaurants to the happenings of Jewish institutions and communities; from the Jewish angles and stories behind the news, to in-depth focus on topics such as Israel and antisemitism; Jewish publications fill the gaps of the mainstream press for a Jewish readership hungry for today's Jewish stories. Join us for a conversation with editors of today's major American Jewish publications about the role they play in the Jewish world. Moderated by Gal Beckerman (The New York Times Book Review) this panel will feature Alana Newhouse (Tablet Magazine), Jodi Rudoren (The Forward), and Philissa Cramer (Jewish Telegraphic Agency). This panel will explore questions including: Now that American Jews have so clearly assimilated into American society what is the need for a Jewish press? What audience do the editors of these publications target? How do they serve the American Jewish community as it grows diverse and diffuse? This panel was originally held on September 13, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices] Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism [https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism]

Robert W. Snyder, "When the City Stopped: Stories from New York's Essential Workers" (Cornell UP, 2026)

The COVID-19 pandemic delivered its first and most devastating strike in the United States in New York City in the Spring of 2020. Closely connected to the world by air travel, with a virus able to circle the globe in a single flight, and with a population always living life largely in public spaces, sickness swept through the city, with the daily death toll reaching, at its worst point in April 2020, almost 800 persons per day. In When the City Stopped: Stories from New York’s Essential Workers [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9781501780387] (Cornell UP, 2026) author Robert W. Snyder offers readers the voices of 45 New Yorkers, recorded in real time during the pandemic, people whose names we would likely not know or recognize. Snyder centers the “oral histories” of these 45 -- transit workers, ambulance drivers, grocery store clerks, firefighters, police officers, “deliveristas” of take-out food, nurses, and doctors. These 45 also speak for thousands of others, the people we came to know as “essential workers.” They could not work from home. They showed up to do their jobs every day during the most dangerous weeks of early Spring 2020, and beyond. Their dedication cost some of them their lives, but their courage, perseverance, and endurance ensured that the city and its people would be saved, in the author’s words, “from the bottom up.” This interview was conducted by James Melchiorre, a journalist, documentary producer, and teacher of English as a Second Language. Melchiorre lives in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices] Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism [https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism]

Anand Gopal, "Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution" (Viking, 2026)

From Pulitzer and National Book Award finalist Anand Gopal, an epic and enthralling account of six Syrians fighting for a better world, in the tradition of classic works by Philip Gourevitch and Katherine Boo. In 2011, in a northern Syrian city, a small group of men and women began a movement that overthrew a brutal dictatorship. For the next eighteen months, many of the citizens of Manbij carried out one of the most remarkable experiments in democracy in modern times. https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9781668062173Days of Love and Rage [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9781668062173] (Viking, 2026) details the powerfully intimate narratives of the men and women who led this struggle, and who experienced the highs of camaraderie and the lows of betrayal. Among them: a pair of best friends torn apart by political polarization, a mother who stands up to male dominance, and a worker who risks everything for the dream of equality. Anand Gopal immerses you in the world of a single city in the throes of revolution, and lays bare the danger that inequality poses to democracy. But this book transcends the particulars of one terrible conflict to tell the broader story of rising authoritarianism in our times. Days of Love and Rage has the force, sweep, and artistry of a great novel, and is ultimately a story of our enduring human need for dignity and hope. Anand Gopal is a writer for The New Yorker. He is the author of No Good Men Among the Living and writes about democracy, inequality, and conflict. Recommended Books: * Loubna Mrie, Defiance [https://odysseybookstore.com/book/9781984880000] * Walter Ang, Orality and Literacy [https://odysseybookstore.com/book/9780415538381] Chris Holmes [https://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/cholmes] is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/kazuo-ishiguro-against-world-literature-9781501388422/], is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival [https://www.ithaca.edu/academics/school-humanities-and-sciences/writing/new-voices-festival], a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices] Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism [https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism]