The latest edition of a textbook for would-be broadcast journalists has hit the bookstores.

Broadcast News Writing, Reporting and Producing (fourth edition) comes complete with a companion website to examine the skills and challenges of writing, reporting, and producing for broadcast journalism.

A third of the book covers everything from basic skills and speciality reporting tio research techniques and ethics.

Along with complete coverage of the fundamentals, this book contains writing samples from some well-known broadcast journalists, who also discuss how they write and report.

The book examines real-life situations and examines the problems that reporters, writers, producers and assignment editors face every day.

Each chapter contains exercises for writing, review, and discussion so that students can learn and apply what they've read. This edition also includes such timely topics as the embedding of reporters with the military in Iraq and the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

Although most of the case studies are American, the lessons are there to be picked up which are relevant to all areas.

The author, Ted White, has been a broadcast journalist since starting his career as a copy boy for The Voice of America while in college as a journalism student. He worked for CBS, ABC, and CNN as well as other major radio and TV stations in New York City where he was a writer, reporter, editor, and producer before becoming a college professor.

Broadcast News Writing, Reporting and Producing is published by Focal Press for £24.99 (ISBN 0-240-80659-X)