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Media and Apocalypse News Coverage of the Yellowstone Forest Fires, Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, and Loma Prieta Earthquake
By Conrad Smith
ISBN: 0-313-27725-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-27725-2
228 pages, Figure, Map, Table
Greenwood Press
Publication: 10/30/1992
List Price: $57.95 (UK Sterling Price: £31.95)
Availability:
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • This is a balanced and careful assessment of the role of media in a time when most depend on them--in times of considerable stress.
    —Communication Booknotes
Description: This book is a critical examination of how newspaper and television journalists reported three catastrophes. The focus is on the processes by which journalists identified news sources and gathered data, on the professional values of the journalists and on the ways that those values contributed to or interfered with good reporting. The book is based on examination of several thousand newspaper and television stories, on surveys of more than 600 journalists and their sources, on evaluations of news accounts by independent experts, on personal visits to the sites of the catastrophes, and on interviews with more than 100 reporters, correspondents, producers, editors, and their sources. The scholarly goal of the book is to provide a theoretical understanding of the process by which reporters gather information for these kinds of stories and thus to identify changes in the journalistic routine that might encourage more accurate and comprehensive coverage of public issues. He shows how television reports sometimes influence the ways print reporters structure their stories, an effect he calls "journalistic priming." He examines the ways in which Pulitzer Prize-winning stories are different from others, and attempts to integrate reporters' and sources' comments with the theoretical literature. This is the first book-length effort that uses a single research design to compare how both print and television journalists covered several major events, and to examine the interrelationship between the television and newspaper reporting. Other scholars often ignore one or the other, as though the two media operated independently.
Table of Contents:
  • Catastrophes and the News Media
  • How Events Become News: The Search for Truth
  • "This is What's Left of Yellowstone Tonight": Urban Reporters and Wilderness Fire
  • The Unthinkable Happens: Oil in Prince William Sound
  • A Prediction Comes True: The 1989 "World Series" Earthquake
  • News Practices and Catastrophes: Reporters, Symbols and Public Myths
  • Reporters and Experts: Strategies for Better Journalism
  • Appendix: Details of the Research Methods
  • Bibliography
  • Index
LC Card Number: 92-9316
LCC Class: PN4888
Dewey Class: 303.48
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