Clarence Jones

Clarence Jones is an on-camera coach who teaches media survival skills. He knows what he's talking about. He was a reporter for 30 years before he wrote a book that became the "bible" of media relations. At the Miami Herald and WPLG-TV in Miami, he had been one of America's most-honored investigative reporters. He now has nine non-fiction books available in both print and e-book versions, has just finished his first novel, and has started non-fiction book #10. His memoirs describe his career as a legendary journalist in vivid detail: "They're Gonna Murder You - War Stories From My Life at the News Front." It is a stunning book, about a remarkable career. It reads like a mystery story or a spy novel. Because that was his life as a reporter. He's a great story teller. Go with him into the bookie joints in Louisville with a hidden camera. Or to a Miami crime scene, where the victims were almost certainly murdered by cops. Travel with him as he tails the chief justice of Florida's Supreme Court to a Las Vegas casino. And as you cover Martin Luther King's civil rights campaigns, always remember to start your car with the door open. If the KKK has planted a bomb, the blast will blow you out of the car. You'll probably survive. Hold your breath as Clarence's car sinks in a canal, so he can show you how to escape. Control your fear in the middle of a race riot when the police retreat and the mob turns on you and your crew. Cringe as he shares inside stories of how news was slanted at his first newspaper and public officials were coddled. Rejoice in the chapter "Bosses with Balls" as owners and editors at the Miami Herald and two TV stations where he worked take career and financial risks to support his reporting. Worry about the future of the democracy as mega-corporations take over news outlets and the bean counters abandon journalism's goals of truth, fairness, and public service. Jones tells it the way it was. The way it REALLY was. And how great reporting may yet triumph. At WPLG-TV in Miami, he was one of the nation's most-honored reporters. He won four Emmys and became the first reporter for a local station to ever win three duPont-Columbia Awards - TV's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. This is how he describes himself in his memoirs: ----------------------- What else would you like to know? I live near the mouth of Tampa Bay in walking shorts and flip-flops. I own one business suit which I wear to funerals and formal weddings. I'm a writer, sailor, photographer, inventor, tinkerer. I've been making my computers from scratch since 2005. Neighbors and friends call for help when their computers have a problem. Or when it's time to buy a new one. Someone once said the same skills I used as an investigative reporter are what make me good with computers. I'm persistent. I don't quit until the problem is solved. I'm an early adopter. Having a brand new gadget to play with is like Christmas morning when I was a kid. When I'm not writing or sailing, I'm usually working on the latest version of some gadget that will make my house or my boat or my computer work better. My specialty in magazine articles is how to make things for a fraction of what they would cost at Home Depot or West Marine. I am alarmed now that reporting as I knew it is nearly extinct. I blame the dramatic shift in ownership of news media outlets. Profit has become more important than accuracy or fairness or public service. If it bleeds, it leads, the saying goes. If public service is not at the top of the priority list, the First Amendment protection guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution is no longer sensible. Too many in government and politics now consider the news media as just another corporate force struggling to support the price of the company's stock and keeping the stockholders happy. In this book, I've tried to show you that creeping disease from an insider's perspective. And how attitudes at both the newspaper and a TV station where I worked changed when the corporate bean counters took over. Without a free and aggressive press, democracy simply will not work. The Internet is the only hope I see. I hope the people who read this book will grasp the risk, and help stop the impending disaster. ------------------- Jones began working for a daily newspaper full-time while he earned his journalism degree at the University of Florida. He was state capitol correspondent for the Florida Times Union, a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, and Washington correspondent for the Miami Herald before he became a television investigative reporter. His first job was under deep cover in Louisville, Kentucky. He smuggled a hidden camera into bookie joints on a daily basis for eight months to show how illegal gambling had corrupted government and law enforcement. After two years in Louisville, he returned to Miami as investigative reporter for WPLG-TV, the ABC affiliate there. While he was reporting, Jones also taught broadcast journalism for five years as an adjunct professor at the University of Miami. He left reporting when his first book was published - "Winning with the News Media - A Self-Defense Manual When You're the Story." He says he wrote it "to teach people like you how to cope with SOBs like me." It is now in its 9th Edition. Clarence's nine books are: "They're Gonna Murder You -- War Stories From My Life At The News Front" "Winning with the News Media -- A Self-Defense Manual When You're the Story" "Webcam Savvy for the Job or the News" "Webcam Savvy for Telemedicine" "Filming Family History -- How to Save Great Stories for Future Generations" "Sailboat Projects - Clever Ideas and How to Make Them - For a Pittance" "More Sailboat Projects" (a sequel) "Sweetheart Scams -- Online Dating's Billion-Dollar Swindle" "LED Basics -- Choosing and Using the Magic Light" All are available in both print and e-book versions.