As I’m now working at an NPR station, but I was never formally trained in journalism, I decided to look up what I missed out on. Here are the introductory textbook’s used by 5 of America’s top journalism programs:

Textbook / Book		Program	New	Used
	Who, What, When, Where, Why by James Glen Stovall	Emmerson College	$121	$7
	Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel	UT Austin	$12	$8 ( Free audiobook with audible trial )
	Inside Reporting by Tim Harrower	Northwestern	$100	$71
	Writing and Reporting the News by Carole Rich	NYU	$130	$60
	The News Media: What Everyone Needs to Know by C.W. Anderson, Leonard Downie Jr., Michael Schudson.	USC	$13	$6.64

Other texts that showed up in syllabi: The Associated Press Stylebook and America’s Best Newspaper Writing by Roy Peter Clark

Anyways, if you’re interested in teaching yourself journalism, this might be a place to start. This probably also doubles as a list of books to give as a gift to a journalism major or a young aspiring journalist.

Also of interest, might be the unofficial recommended reading list from Gimlet Media, which pertains specifically to making narrative audio documentaries and NPR-style pieces.

And if there’s a good book for young journalists that you want to recommend that wasn’t on this list, please mention it in a comment!