Deadlines and Disruption: My Turbulent Path from Print to Digital

News veteran Shepard effectively charts his professional ups and downs alongside an insider's look at the rapidly changing business of print media. In unassuming prose, he chronicles his career, beginning in the 1960s as a staff reporter at Business Week, followed by stints at Newsweek and the Saturday Review, returning to Business Week in 1984, spending two decades as editor in chief. He revamped the venerable magazine's content and design for a rapidly changing business age. But more illuminating than the account of his professional achievements is the book's third section dealing with the changing nature of journalism and its evolving shift from print to digital. When Shepard, now dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, describes crafting a new media-rich curriculum, the narrative picks up considerably. His own feelings about the Internet have changed dramatically, from viewing it as a "Category Five Storm for journalism" to "believ[ing] that digital technology enriches journalism," with new modes of producing and delivering news and the ability to reach new readers. Newshounds, readers, writers, and editors may not agree with the unalloyed optimism, but they should find Shepard's transformational journey fascinating. Photos. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM. (Sept.)