Dr. Telly Kamelia 
If you only need the buying answer, rental is still the cheapest route in the current snapshot, and used print is lower than the current new copy. The current paperback still has a case because it stays below the sampled new-book market and below Barnes & Noble retail, which makes a clean keepable copy reasonable for students who expect continued journalism writing work.
| Format | Seller | Current Price | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rental | BookFinder marketplace | $47.99 | Check price |
| Paperback Used | BookFinder marketplace | $72.49 | Check price |
| Paperback New | Merybook | $80.45 | Check price |
| Paperback New | Barnes & Noble | $94.99 | Check price |
| Paperback New | BookFinder marketplace | $127.57 | Check price |
The clean financial answer depends on how long this book needs to stay useful. If the class is your only journalism-writing requirement, rental wins. If you expect to keep writing news stories, feature pieces, interview-driven assignments, or student-media work going forward, the current new copy is competitively priced enough to make ownership reasonable instead of wasteful.
What this book actually teaches
Writing & Reporting for the Media is a skills book, not a passive reading text. It teaches news judgment, leads, attribution, interviewing, feature writing, accuracy, ethics, and the practical habits that make reporting readable and defensible. That matters because books like this often stay open while students are actively drafting or revising. They become handbooks for recurring writing problems rather than one-time reading assignments.
That continued usefulness is the strongest argument for print. A reporting text can keep paying off long after the first media course if the student is still writing, editing, or reporting. But if the goal is only to complete one term cheaply, rental or used still wins the narrow financial argument.
Who should buy print and who should not
Choose rental if you only need the book for one course and want the lowest cost. Choose used if price matters more than condition. Choose the current new paperback if you want a clean copy to keep through later writing-intensive journalism, media, or communication work. In the current market, new print is not the cheapest route, but it is fairly priced for a reusable handbook.
