Last week on Rhetorica I rather peevishly wished that popular publishers would emulate the standards of academic peer review. That's unreasonable for many good reasons, not the least of which is that we already have many fine academic presses publishing books by academics on the same topics covered by authors such as Ann Coulter and Al Franken.

Ann Franken won't tell it like it is because it has no clue how it is. And, even if it did, its purpose is ideological struggle not enlightenment. So, if your purpose is something more than having your own ideology validated, Ann Franken et. al. cannot satisfy your needs.

Want to read a good book about the press and politics? I suggest The Press Effect by Kathleen Hall Jamieson (Oxford University Press, 2003). Professor Jamieson knows far more about this intersection that Ann Franken will ever know. She won't make you laugh with sick jokes at the expense of civil discourse. She won't talk down to you. She won't pander to your ideology. She won't grind any axes. And she will get her facts straight.

The book is about, among other things, the narrative bias of journalism, although Jamieson does not use that term. Instead, she approaches her subject with the lens and frame metaphors. She demonstrates how and why politics is covered in the way it is and what that means. Because this book isn't as popular as those by Ann Franken, you can pick up a new or used copy cheap. It will be money well spent.