An eminently useful text for television and web journalism. No other text does such thorough job of integrating new media into traditional TV reporting. The authors' blog is a great way to keep updated and introduce current material into the class, and the online interactive workbook has some truly inventive exercises.

The focus on multiple platforms is the primary reason this text was chosen for this course. The approach is not only described in regard to news delivery systems, but also when discussing beat reporting and news gathering. The online workbook particularly had great content; the “Ongoing Story” feature was my favorite part of the website—it was great for brainstorming. The text is set up in a way that makes sense, and I truly think it does a wonderful job of breaking down each storytelling style.

The multiplatform approach is one of the strongest selling points for this text, and each tool is well-developed and integrated throughout the text. Next to the workbook, the author’s blog was the biggest cutting-edge development that CQ introduced with Advancing the Story. It was always kept up-to-date, and we constantly assigned stories from the blog during the class; we even assigned stories from the blog in other classes! We see Advancing the Story as a necessary teaching resource for anyone teaching cross-platform or multi-platform reporting and writing, and we are happy to require it as a part of our overall multimedia reporting and writing curriculum.