Courtesy of City University Investigative Journalism MA graduate James Ball (blog, twitter), here is a general reading list from the course that I personally think would be suitable for anyone interested in journalism. If you buy second hand, you can get the entire list from Amazon for around £65 including postage too! Comments by James.

-Any of David Leigh’s back catalogue (there are all hugely out of date, and out of print, but he’s a great writer and amazon has them cheap second-hand). Try High Time, The Wilson Plot, The Liar: Fall of Jonathan Aitken, and Sleaze: The Corruption of Parliament.

-Ghost Plane, Stephen Gray. Heavy read, but the network analysis stuff Grey did on the planespotters’ records is frankly brilliant

-Smartest Guys in the Room, Elkind and McLean - great book on unravelling enron

-Tell Me No Lies - Pilger; best anthology of 20th century investigative journalism going.

-All The President’s Men - the one that started it off

On a more practical note:

How To Lie With Statistics - best stats primer I’ve ever come across, written in the 1950s, less than 150 pages long, bit of a page turner, and still in print

Your Right To Know, Heather Brooke - getting a bit dated (new version coming next year), but really handy for Freedom of Information. Though lots of the useful stuff is online at www.yrtk.org

Investigative Reporting: a study in technique, David Spark (online preview here) - a good basic primer.

Flat Earth News, Nick Davies

Bad Science, Ben Goldacre

Also interesting, this list of Journalism books that every journalism student should supposedly read.

UPDATE: here’s the official reading list from City University for the Investigative Journalism 1 and 2 modules.

The ones marked with an asterix are highly recommended.

Heather Brooke, Your Right to Know: A Citizen’s Guide to the Freedom of Information Act, Pluto Press (2007)*

Hugo de Burgh, Investigative Journalism, Routledge (2008)*

Mark Danner, Torture and Truth: Abu Ghraib and America in Iraq,

Nick Davies, Flat Earth News, Chatto and Windus (2008)*

Harold Evans, Good Times Bad Times, Phoenix Press (1994)

Stephen Grey, Ghost Plane: The Untold Story of the CIA’s Secret Rendition Programme. Scribe Publications (2007)*

David Leigh and David Pallister, The Liar:The Fall of Jonathan Aitken, Second Edition, Guardian Books*

David Leigh and Ed Vulliamy, Sleaze, The Corruption of Parliament Fourth Estate 1997

David Northmore, Lifting the Lid, a Guide to Investigative Research (Cassell)

John Pilger, Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and Its Triumphs Vintage (2005)*

Anthony Sampson, The Arms Bazaar

David Spark, Investigative Reporting: A Study in Technique

Gillian Tett, Fool’s Gold, Little Brown 2009 *

Martin Walker, Dirty Medicine

Woodward and Bernstein, All The president’s Men*

And the general investigative journalism reading list.

News & Production

Anna McKane   Newswriting (Sage, 2006)*

David Randall   The Universal Journalist (Pluto Press)

Features & Research

Angela Phillips  Good Writing for Journalists (Sage, 2007)*

Brendan Hennessy  Writing Feature Articles  (Focal Press)

Sally Adams   Interviewing for Journalists (Routledge)*

David Northmore  Lifting the Lid: A Guide to Investigative Research      (Cassell)

Writing & English

Hicks, Gilbert & Adams Writing for Journalists (Routledge)*

Wynford Hicks  English for Journalists (Routledge)*

Harold Evans   Essential English (Pimlico)*

General

Richard Keeble  Ethics for Journalists

Anna McKane   Journalism: A Career Handbook (A& C Black)

Nick Davies                            Flat Earth News (Chatto and Windus) 2008*

Dawn Johnstone                     Teeline for Journalists*

Structure of Government

You will receive a comprehensive reading list for the Structure of Government module at the start of term, but in the meantime

you could look at:

Bill Jones et al. (ed). Politics UK. (Pearson 2007)

Media Law

McNae’s Essential Law for Journalists by Tom Welsh, Walter Greenwood and David Banks  (2007) *

Law for Journalists by Frances Quinn (2007)