Book Review: The Dynamics of News: Journalism in the 21st-Century Media Milieu, by Richard M. Perloff

included undergraduate and graduate students in journalism and strategic communication. Others will buy the book as a means to support the free content TON has created or simply for the pleasure of scribbling in the margins of an old-fashioned paper volume. TON website remains indispensable as a companion to the textbook. Helpful extras can be found online, such as TON’s extensive pitch database, a handy flowchart for making decisions about the viability of story ideas, and a printable cheat sheet of profile interview questions. The website contains many further resources indispensable to science writers, including an extensive guide to finding and using diverse sources. TON has been compared with a free master’s degree in science writing. This book would serve as its introductory course. The book has billed itself as a “guide for media professionals, scientists, science educators, and anyone interested in communicating with the public about science.” Although it is true that anyone interested in science communication would gain value from the book, it is mainly oriented to the journalism side of “science writing.” Other science writing books, such as A Field Guide for Science Writers: The Official Guide of the National Association of Science Writers (2005), edited by Deborah Blum, Mary Knudson, and Robin Marantz Henig, speak more directly to institutional science writers and provide more detail on specific beats. Another guide, The Science Writers’ Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Pitch, Publish and Prosper in the Digital Age (2013), edited by Thomas Hayden and Michelle Nijhuis, delves more deeply into the business of freelancing. Journalism has evolved beyond an obsession with scooping the competition at all costs. Collaboration is how we now survive, and science writers have been especially generous with their time and talents in supporting each other and newcomers to the profession. Buying this book, one is not merely purchasing a science writing guide. One is taking a seat at a community table. As the world faces threats from climate change and the coronavirus pandemic, science journalists, as first responders for truth, need every bit of that sustenance.