This book is a collection of meditations on journalism and closely related subjects that can be read for its own sake by students, teachers, and working journalists. It provides material for the study of what professors of journalism might call ?theory,? and, in our view, it is an appropriate text for a capstone course in such a subject. But we are hoping that professors who teach reporting and writing courses will also adopt it as a text for their students to read as they undertake increasingly ambitious reporting and writing assignments. Its content and organization are designed to strengthen the practical skills of journalism students by introducing them to a rich version of what we call ?the editor?s lexicon??a language providing terms that guide the creation of journalistic texts and direct their correction, repair, and evaluation. It is a language that a master editor might speak and act upon in his or her supervisory role. Regardless of the pedagogical aims of individual instructors, we hope that the lessons contained in the book?s essays and articles will promote an understanding that theory in journalism need not be considered a separate and abstract pursuit. In our view, theory should be a clarification of?and an essential aid to?practice.