TIME FOR KIDS

Useful tips for young journalists—and for their readers, too.

Holzer, a working reporter herself, offers brief, general advice about picking topics and finding an angle, setting up and conducting interviews, keeping accurate records, and livening up news stories with well-chosen details. Though she skips over blogs, vlogs, and broadcast media and only briefly covers photojournalism and editorial cartoons, she does explain at least some of the differences between news and feature stories, sports reportage, opinion pieces, and reviews. She also provides a taste of journalistic history with nods to Nellie Bly, Ida B. Wells, and Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (among other luminaries), lets several cub reporters in the TIMEfor Kids program chime in with their own experiences and insights, and offers readers a handful of practice challenges like writing a movie review and a letter to the editor. In line with her stance that the pursuit of truth is a crucial journalistic objective, she includes guidelines for evaluating the trustworthiness of information sources—a section that should be of interest to general readers as well as conscientious budding journalists. Bright spot graphics and color photos of smiling reporters diverse in terms of race and age further lighten this airy introduction. “Go forth!” the author grandly closes, find the stories that need to be told, and “apply what you’ve learned in this book by practicing good journalism habits.”

A slick overview of basic procedures and principles.