Journalism Electives

A global, militant “anti-vax” movement has surfaced to campaign against immunization. But why? Award-winning investigative reporter Brian Deer exposes the truth behind the crisis, including its origins and the rise of a British ex-doctor named Andrew Wakefield, the so-called “father of the anti-vaccine movement” and the original author of the now-debunked study that claimed a possible link between vaccines and autism. Deer uncovers rigged research, money-making schemes, and the scientific scandal of our time.

On October 5, 2017, the New York Times published an article by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey--and then the world changed. For months Kantor and Twohey had been having confidential discussions with top actresses, former Weinstein employees and other sources, learning of disturbing long-buried allegations, some of which had been covered up by onerous legal settlements. [...]

But nothing could have prepared them for what followed the publication of their Weinstein story. Within days, a veritable Pandora's Box of sexual harassment and abuse was opened, and women who had suffered in silence for generations began coming forward, trusting that the world would understand their stories. Over the next twelve months, hundreds of men from every walk of life and industry would be outed for mistreating their colleagues. But did too much change--or not enough?

In this witty and sometimes satirical fantasy novel, Pratchett weaves a tale of a world not too unlike our own. The Truth follows the evolution of a city’s newspaper and its journalistic practices, and how the protagonists come to essentially invent investigative journalism by asking questions about an attempted murder — and the unjust framing for said murder.