Suitable for students, editorial writers.

This book has been around a long time. You can tell that not just because it's the fourth edition or that the first edition was published in 1983, but because the author, Ken Rystrom, a lapsed editorial writer who became an academic, has dedicated this edition to "the children, the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren." (Emphasis mine) We should all do so well.

As Rystrom reminds us in the preface, this book came about at the suggestion of long-ago NCEW officers who wanted a text suitable for students and new editorial writers. Mixed-audience books can be a bear to write and a burden to read if you're on the wrong side of the audience, but with a few modest exceptions, Rystrom does succeed. (For example, a chapter on the design of editorial pages might be useful for the beginning writer, but not something that would be part of a college course, mostly because good journalism programs teach design separately.)

As with the other editions, the book is both descriptive and prescriptive. Rystrom opens with a brief chapter on the history of the press and editorial writing and then segues to current conditions. It's not until chapter ten (out of twenty) that Rystrom switches to the prescriptive and tells the budding opinion-maker how to write an editorial. The tips in that chapter became slides in my college course and at high school journalism workshops.

When I taught editorial writing, my students had to write an endorsement editorial. Anyone can endorse a presidential candidate, but let's write where we live and endorse local candidates. I picked a race and the candidates came to class one by one to meet with the editorial board.

I could not have done that without a textbook that contains not just a chapter on endorsements, but a chapter that analyzes the process pro and con in a way that helps students realize they're not just writing something, but performing (in my view) a public service of the highest order.

My students also did a civic journalism project, and I relied heavily on excerpts from other books and on videos from the Pew Center for Civic Journalism. Users of Rystrom's Fourth will have to do the same because he provides a mere two pages on the topic and another two in which he shares personal experiences that really aren't examples of civic journalism. I would have liked to see more.

I also would have liked more of a discussion on libel. Rystrom limits it to a mention that libel can be a problem in letters to the editor--and he is correct, of course. But this expert witness who has ten defamation cases under his belt can tell you that opinion columns (also discussed in the book) can be just as problematic as letters. And despite all the protection opinions enjoy in the United States, one still needs to be careful in an editorial.

Overall, the book serves both audiences well. Rystrom includes a multitude and variety of new examples, provides context by using his experiences from his days as an editorial writer, and offers teachers exercises at the end of most chapters.

He ends the book by telling readers that "editorial writing, at heart, is an optimistic business" and the fourth edition reflects that well. His great grandchildren should be very proud.

NCEW member R. Thomas Berner is a professor emeritus of journalism and American studies at the Pennsylvania State University. His previous book is The Literature of Journalism: Text and Context E-mail [e-mail]