If there’s one thing I really enjoy reading about, it’s journalists and journalism.

If there’s another thing I really enjoy reading about, it’s zombies.

And when you put the two together, that’s a literary combination that never fails to draw me back over and over again.

Mira Grant’s Newsflesh Trilogy — “Feed”, “Deadline” and “Blackout” — (see what she did there?) delivers the fast-paced action you’d expect in a zombie flick, coupled with the uncertainty and drama of a highly volatile political scene that spans across a county that is as much the home of the brave as the living dead.

What really drew my eye to this book in the first place — I bought it at an airport bookstore, having forgotten one of my own books — was how the novels treated the evolution of journalism through the Uprising.

When the zombies first started chewing on everyone and their Aunt Mildred, the mainstream media (newspapers, networks, radio stations) were slow to report the beginnings of the apocalypse, and their hesitation to believe the facts led to the deaths of millions of people.

It was amateur blogger that were successful in getting the truth out to the people, helping pass along zombie killing tips, (George Romero went from a cult classic king to the savior of the world overnight) presenting survival-relevant news and even coordinating groups of survivors to safety.

The bloggers that did well survived. The ones that don’t get eaten.

How’s that for credibility?

So while the world worked to get back to as normal as possible, mainstream media started to take a backseat, and the rise of the blogger brought with it a new age of… well… news.

And that’s where our main characters — George and Shaun Mason — come in, as the first ever bloggers to be invited to follow a presidential candidate across the country during a political era like no other.

But while the entire series is addicting and entertaining, and I hear she wrote a fourth book that I want to get into, I’ve got to clarify what I meant by how the book portrays journalism that drew my eye.

Because, as at least one other reviewer pointed out (shoutout to Jonathan McCalmont from Strange Horizons), the journalism in this book is absolutely terrible.

And, what’s worse, eerily familiar.

The weakness of the world of news in Newsflesh is the drive for clicks.

Clicks mean attention. Attention brings revenue. And revenue means you upgrade your equipment, bring on more staff, and find (or make) the next big sensational headline to keep the cycle going.

George (full name Georgia, and yes, after Romero) takes care of the news and opinion side of her and her brother’s website.

Or rather, she takes care of the opinionated news side of the website.

She’s not big on managing clicks — she writes what she believes, whether it’s popular or not, and ignores her brother when he mentions there are things women can do to easily bring their site more attention.

Her brother Shaun is all about the clicks.

While George is a newsie, Shaun is an Irwin (you can probably guess where his title comes from) which means his job is to poke dead things with a stick to see what happens.

He’s always camera ready, from his hair to his smile to having the chops to make even the most mundane zombie hunt thrilling through his footage editing and scary dialogue.

Basically, Shaun’s character is the news entertainment industry. US Weekly and Men’s Fitness meets Dawn of the Dead. Great for clicks, terrible for news.

At least George and Shaun respect their jobs to go out to get their stories, since it’s made clear many bloggers have no interest in applying for the government-required gun permits to be allowed to travel in and through zombie-infested areas in order to do their jobs.

But that’s nothing compared to the public they report to, many of whom are too scared to leave their homes, shop at a local grocery store or even shake another’s hand our of fear of infection or outbreak, let alone go to political rallies and head to the voting booths.

You can imagine the shape the country must be in: Facts playing second fiddle to opinions, talking heads and revenue streams; viral videos and celebrity gossip grabbing the public’s attention more than the current political and socioeconomic crises; and a public content in living their lives on the sidelines, despite the fact one of their presidential candidates has proven to be more bent on amassing power and wealth at the detriment of others, let alone help unite the country against a very real threat that will shape the future of our lives on earth.

Wait.

Am I still talking about the books?

Huh. Maybe we don’t need zombies to fuel our country’s demise. Seems like we’re doing just fine on our own.

The Newsflesh Series has everything you’d look for in a journalism/zombie literary one-two combo – action, politics, treachery, romance, and more action, complete with killer one-liners and ridiculous last minute escapes from certain death.

But if you read it and think it’s an accurate portrayal of what journalism is supposed to be, you’d be dead wrong.