Moving beyond the focus on journalists typically found in books on the dynamics of the newsmaking process, The Politics of News: The News of Politics extends its examination to the struggle between journalists, political actors, and the public for control of the news in democratic countries. The book shows how the news media function as an intermediary between governments and citizens, as well as between political actors (such as parties and interest groups) and the public.

Essays present a diversity of views and are written by a distinguished group of authors that includes Walter Cronkite, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Jarol B. Manheim, and Kathleen Frankovic. The Politics of News: The News of Politics is policy-oriented in its diagnosis of the problems faced by the parties whose influence affects newsmaking in existing and emerging democracies and, in the process, it generates ideas about possible reforms. Several chapters (Chapters 1, 2, 4, and 11) offer a comparative approach that offer students insight into the impact on newsmaking of diverse cultural factors.

Accessible yet sophisticated, the selections in The Politics of News: The News of Politics cover significant issues rarely discussed in books about political news, ranging from the ingenious ways that governments and interest groups draw attention to their concerns in favorable ways, to the impacts of public opinion polling, market research, and new communication technologies on the newsmaking process, to the trials and tribulations of journalists in both Western democracies and democratizing societies of Central and Eastern Europe.