Foreign Rights contact

Just as the Slow Food Movement helped the world begin to change its relationship with food, Slow News is a step-by-step guide to help the news consumer combat the assault of misinformation, disinformation, and too much unfiltered information we all face in today’s ultra-mediated society.
Slow News offers the news consumer 30 rules supported by research conducted by the author, along with his years in the trenches of journalism and academia. The style is chatty and fun (and at appropriate times funny), avuncular in nature, and in the first person. At times the author’s voice is confessional: he has not only witnessed news media abuse, his professional history includes practicing some of the infractions. The rules are peppered with quotes from colleagues and experts who weigh on particular aspects with which they are intimately familiar.

Introduction: Extra! Extra!  Read all about it!
Part One: Journalism and Journalists Defined
1. What is the news? 2. Make your news stand the test of time; 3. Question news reports that promise simple solutions to complex problems [...] 4. Don’t avoid news and commentary that you disagree with; [...] 9. The term “investigative journalism” is redundant
Part Two: Who Are the Media and What Are the Sources?
10. Shut off the all-news television channels whenever you can; 11. Know your sources; [...]14. Look for news in the most unexpected places; [...]16. Buy some of your news; [...]18. Avoid news reports pretending to be something they are not
Part Three: The Onus Is on the News Consumer
19. Be your own commentator; 20. Chew your news well; 21. Don’t become a news junkie; 22. Assume nothing; if your mother says she loves you, check it; [...] 25. Romanticize Journalism (Some of the Time) 26. Become a news reporter for a day
Epilogue: The First Amendment

The continuing journalistic adventure of Peter Laufer has already resulted in thousands of hours of network reporting from the front lines of conflict and social change around the world, and a growing shelf of books dealing with social and political issues: from immigration (Wetback Nation) to talk radio (Inside Talk Radio). Laufer’s latest books include one that focuses on American soldiers who return from Iraq opposed to the war (Mission Rejected, Chelsea Publishing) and another, Hope Is a Tattered Flag (PoliPoint Press), written with Markos Kounalakis, offering scenarios for recovery post-Bush. The Dangerous World of Butterflies (Lyons Press) is a direct result of Laufer’s speaking tour for Mission Rejected. As a follow-up to this book, Laufer wrote Forbidden Creatures, a study of the so-called exotic pets and their “owners.” The third book in this natural history trilogy is No Animals Were Harmed during the Writing of this Book, to be published in 2011.
The articles and op-ed pieces by Peter Laufer appear in a wide variety of publications, from the San Francisco Chronicle to Mother Jones magazine, from the Washington Monthly to Penthouse. Peter Laufer is the James Wallace Chair in Journalism at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication.