Over the past 20 years, the news media has become more restricted, less diverse, and of lower quality. Fewer owners and managers control editorial policies and thousands of journalists have been sacked. However, outside the West, rising levels of literacy and education have fostered vastly increased newspaper circulations, and the Internet has brought a much broader world to some restricted societies. "The News" gives an inside view of who owns news venues, recent developments in television and radio news, and the ongoing newspaper crisis.

Peter Steven is an author and teaches media studies at Ryerson University. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.