As Trump assumes the presidency again, there’s no better time to look back at journalism’s history to understand the field’s faults and flaws

In 2025, the clock is turning back: President-elect Donald Trump, who held a four-year term at the country’s top office, will assume it again. 

But things have changed since 2016. Trump, who has historically been anti-press and vitriolic toward female reporters in particular, will be presiding over a different media landscape that is arguably more fruitful for mis- and disinformation. 

ChatGPT expanding its function to a search engine — as it partners with a growing number of news outlets — has increased the possibility of misinformation, both around elections and about general historical questions. 

TikTok has become a main platform for people to get news, but most users on the platform see news-related content primarily through influencers and celebrities, not journalists. 

Plus, nonprofit news organizations could be at risk for losing their tax-exempt status — putting them in a financially precarious situation — if the reporting they publish is deemed “terrorism.” That’s thanks to a bill passing through the Senate meant to punish nonprofits over alleged “terrorist” ties.

Accurately and thoughtfully reporting on the stakes of the current moment isn’t just important for the present, but for the future. Real change and progress in journalism comes from examining past missteps, like focusing on horse-race coverage over the communities affected by proposed policies. 

So as journalists and newsrooms gear up for the next four years and beyond, I put together a short, non-comprehensive (and non-sponsored) list of books that might be helpful to propel conversations and thoughts into actionable guidelines for better coverage.

Journalism-specific

News for all the People — Juan González and Joseph Torres

The New York Times may think they are the flagship paper of the U.S., but for communities of color throughout the U.S., their main trusted source of news is not necessarily the so-called paper of record. 

González and Torres provide a history grounded in shifting cultural and government attitudes toward news media while tracing the existence and development of ethnic media in the U.S. as an alternative that more accurately reflected the concerns, lives, and existence of marginalized people in the U.S. while white broadcasters and journalists fomented racial violence.

“Our entire media system, in fact, never depended entirely on the invisible hand of the free market,” González and Torres write. “It developed as a direct result of media policies adopted by our political leaders at key junctures in the nation’s history.” 

Companion questions

• How do you see the impact of media-related legislation in the current journalistic landscape today? 
• What is the history of your local ethnic media? 
• How might you work together to better provide coverage in the coming years and what can you learn from them about reaching communities not reflected in your newsroom demographics? 

News for the Rich, White, and Blue — Nik Usher 

With the 2024 State of Local News report showing predicted declines across newspapers, publication frequency, and other metrics, Usher’s focus on “Goldilocks newspapers” that straddle the boundaries between being authoritative local and regional voices without necessarily seeking a national foothold can help provide insight into the ways place and power shape the local news landscape. 

Their book looks at the ways newspaper journalism has perpetuated a harmful status quo, despite its positioning as a bulwark of democracy, and the ways that definitions of “place” have impacted news production and dissemination, from newsroom location to broader circulation. 

Companion questions 

• What are the predominant news sources in your region? 
• How has location played a role in their prominence, and what can it tell you about spatial specificity in news-making? 
• What definitions of “place” does your coverage operate on, and if you aren’t originally from the area you cover, how have you developed a relationship to it? 

Journalism and Jim Crow — Edited by Kathy Roberts Forde and Sid Bedingfield, foreword by Alex Lichtenstein

Journalism as an institution isn’t a blameless institution in shaping current systems of oppression, and this anthology looking at how the white press shaped the Jim Crow South holds important lessons for how those values are replicated in today’s mainstream news organizations. 

It also undercuts the idea of journalism as a “neutral” actor, highlighting the ways white newspapers inflamed racist actors and beliefs — through normalizing lynching, anti-Black rampages, and more — alongside efforts of Black media to resist white supremacy, affirm Black livelihoods and life, and push for a democratic society in action, not just name. Those efforts, contributors argue, also existed in large part because of the systemic racism propped up by white newspapers with a particular racist point of view. 

As journalists today grapple with regional distinctions between community views, they would do well to remember what different regions of the U.S. share, as Forde and Bedingfield recall members of the Black press did for the North and South”: “They were quick to recognize just how much the North was in league with the New South as a rigid ‘color line’ ran between them both.”

Companion questions

• How has systemic racism informed the standards of publications you respect and the journalistic values that guide your work? 
• In what ways can your stories, sourcing, and view of expertise fight against those standards?

The View from Somewhere — Lewis Raven Wallace

This book opens to Wallace reflecting on a blog post he wrote immediately after the first Trump inauguration, charting a pathway for journalism that rejected “alternative facts” and was open about its particular perspective. It’s ironic; those same blog reflections ring just as true today, including the necessity of journalists to fight back — a call to action echoed in several of the 2025 Nieman Lab predictions. 

It traces the development of “objectivity” within journalism, along with efforts by journalists throughout the industry past and present to do good, truthful work without reifying the idea that “neutral” and “impartial” story-telling is the only way to produce valid journalism. 

Sourcing, story frame, and word choice are all among the decisions reporters make that shape their specific standpoint. This book asks questions about the choices we make and the values that guide them. 

Companion questions

• How were you first taught about “objectivity” and how have you seen its facets potentially cause harm? 
• Who do you consider an “expert” in reporting and what has resulted in their having that power? What present and future is your journalism in service of? 

Journalism-adjacent 

Algorithms of Oppression — Safiya Noble

As journalism has adapted to the advent of technology and new programs have emerged to facilitate (and sometimes hamper) the spread of information, Noble’s history of search engines reinforcing racism opens the “black box” to explain how algorithms work and argues that they exist within a particular historical context. 

“I believe that artificial intelligence will become a major human rights issue in the twenty-first century,” Noble writes. 

With growing numbers of people turning to generative artificial intelligence as a search engine, this book drives home a better understanding of how technology and algorithms are constructed, particularly that neither are “neutral” and that specific values are uplifted in their design. 

Companion questions

• In what ways is your newsroom approaching generative artificial intelligence? 
• How might that amplify existing structural biases in your newsroom and work? 

Disability Visibility — Edited by Alice Wong 

While the COVID-19 pandemic has jumpstarted more conversation about disability and access in many journalism spaces, accompanying Trump’s campaign has been a resurgence of slurs casually referencing intellectual disability, particularly among young men and the so-called “Silicon Valley right”. 

Yet disabled people are the U.S.’s largest minority group, with over 25% of people self-reporting a disability in 2022. That means there are — more likely than not — disabled people in all news audiences. 

This anthology featuring first-person stories from people living with a variety of disabilities is worth reading to better understand the limitations of existing legislation like the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ways disability intersects with other facets of life like religion, race, and transportation, and disabled joy. 

Companion questions 

• How might ableism have shown up in your expectations for your work and your sources?
• How might you adjust expectations around speed and timeliness to enable a wider array of disabled people to potentially be part of your stories? 
• How much have you thought about disability with regard to other beats, from climate change to reproductive rights?

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Cite this article

Salanga, James (2025, Jan. 13). A 2025 book list for contextualizing and reimagining coverage. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/a-2025-book-list-for-contextualizing-and-reimagining-coverage/