1968 was a tumultous year for US politics, with issues of war, race, and protest being brought to the fore. This text looks at how these issues were reported by the media, and what journalism meant in 1968. It also gauges the distance and direction that news reporting has travelled since then.

With the perspective of thirty years we can see that the events of 1968, which once seemed to erupt out of nowhere, were the consequences of powerful trends. At the same time gauging the distance between then and now can help make it clear which aftershocks of 1968 are with us and which, collectively, have disappeared. This volume tells us important things about not only where journalism has been but where it is going.