Required Reading

Here's a great jumping-off point for working journalists, teachers, students or anyone who wants to build a library of excellent journalism manuals and reference books. This list includes books on topics ranging from ethics to investigative reporting to online journalism, as well as some recommended stylebooks and grammar manuals.
 

Here's a great jumping-off point for working journalists, teachers, students or anyone who wants to build a library of excellent journalism manuals and reference books. This list includes books on topics ranging from ethics to investigative reporting to online journalism, as well as some recommended stylebooks and grammar manuals.
 

Ethics

Morals and the Media: Ethics in Canadian Journalism
By Nick Russell
This revised edition of this book takes a close look at the ethical issues that have come out of the changing face of Canadian journalism, including the rise of online journalism and blogging and the further concentration of media ownership. Each chapter also includes a “Tough Calls” section, which allows readers to flex their own ethical muscles and decide what they would do in a sticky situation.

The Invention of Journalism Ethics: The Path to Objectivity and Beyond
By Stephen J.A. Ward
This book explores the history of journalism ethics and the changing relationship between the journalist and the audience, and discusses the theory of journalistic objectivity.

Investigative Reporting

Digging Deeper: A Canadian Reporter’s Research Guide
By Robert Cribb, David McKie, Dean Jobb and Fred Vallance-Jones
Digging Deeper includes a number of practical tips and guides to researching individuals, companies or institutions and to finding information on the public record in Canada through freedom of information laws. The book also includes instruction on how to prepare for interviews, how to pitch investigative pieces and how to effectively organize all of the information you’ve collected.

Behind the Headlines: A History of Investigative Journalism in Canada
By Cecil Rosner
This book explores this history of investigative reporting in Canada, beginning with the country’s earliest newspapers and going up to the present day.

Broadcast Journalism

Storytelling with the Camcorder
This guide focuses on both the technical and the creative sides of television reporting.

Writing for CBC Television
The theme of this book is “have something to say and say it simply.”  This is a strictly practical guide for both new and more seasoned TV writers.

Style & Grammar

The Canadian Press Stylebook
This reference guide, used by Canada’s national news agency, includes the answer to almost any style question a journalist might have, everything from how to format sports scores to how to abbreviate province and state names.

The Canadian Press Caps and Spelling
The other half of the CP Stylebook, Caps and Spelling is a listing of hundreds of the trickiest words that often trip up journalists.

The Globe and Mail Style Book
The Globe and Mail’s in-house style guide is a useful reference for style and usage.

The Chicago Manual of Style
This century-old style guide (now in its 15th edition) contains answers to any question a writer, editor or publisher might have. Though an American publication, this book is a staple at many Canadian publications.

Canadian Oxford Dictionary
The Canadian Oxford is the standard dictionary reference across Canada and is the official dictionary of The Canadian Press and The Globe and Mail. It’s a great reference for Canadian spellings, slang and terminology. Make sure to invest in the big one (with over 300,000 definitions), not the pocketsize or the student edition.  For quick reference, it’s also available at Oxford Reference Online (though not free, the database is often available free at libraries, and you might be able to access it from home with a library card). 

Canadian Oxford Thesaurus
Like the dictionary, it’s useful to get the full-size thesaurus and not the smaller version.

Canadian Oxford A-Z of Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation
This is a handy, pocket-sized reference for all the nitty-gritty aspects of Canadian English.

Editing Canadian English
By The Editors’ Association of Canada
Another excellent reference guide.

Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing
By Mignon Fogarty
Written as a follow-up to the immensely popular Grammar Girl podcast, this book offers a number of funny and lighthearted tips on the ins and outs of grammar. Many of Fogarty’s tips are also available online in both written and podcast form for quick (and free) reference.

Woe Is I
By Patricia T. O’Conner
This grammar guide is written in such a witty and carefree manner that it makes learning about the classroom’s driest subject, grammar, enjoyable—and even fun! O’Conner explains complicated concepts clearly and uses easy-to-remember examples in her instruction.

The Elements of Style
By William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
This book, now in its fourth edition, is the definitive guide to the English language, including about 100 pages of tips on the uses and misuses of common words and phrases.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves
By Lynne Truss
This is the book that took the world, and The New York Times bestseller list, by storm and made everyone crazy about punctuation. No easy feat. Truss’s book is witty and informative, and just a good read whether or not you have a passion for punctuation.

(Note: While excellent, the above four references (Fogarty, O’Conner, and Strunk and White and Truss) are American, not Canadian, so some of the spellings and practices may differ from Canadian norms.)

<a "="" data-cke-saved-name="great" name="great">Great Journalism

Cabin Fever
By Moira Farr and Ian Pearson
The best way to learn about great writing is to read great writing, so why not start with the newest collection of creative non-fiction to come out of the Literary Journalism Program at the Banff Centre. The book includes pieces from Jeff Warren, Charlotte Gill and Jeremy Klaszus, among others.

The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism
By Kevin Kerrane and Ben Yagoda
This almost-600-page text includes the some of the greatest literary non-fiction ever written and spans nearly 400 years. The book includes works from everyone from Daniel Defoe to Walt Whitman to Hunter S. Thompson.