subject: Hard News Reports Events Linked To Issues Prevalent In The News At The Time [print this page] News coverage follows certain issues at various times, such as the issue of civil rights in the 1960s, women's liberation for a period in the 1970s, and gay rights in the 1980s and 1990s. For example, when the United States began its space program, each launch received detailed news coverage. Much of this coverage concerned whether or not NASA was ready to launch the rockets involved Links Of London Necklaces in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs and whether flights that included astronauts were safe. As years passed without disasters, however, the space program generally, as well as the shuttle launches begun in 1983, came to seem routine, and news people began to treat them perfunctorily.
Accordingly, reporters did not continue to probe questions of safety and were caught unawares by the Challenger disaster. Television and print reporters did not know of the imminent danger to the Challenger space shuttle due to the likelihood that the seals--called O-rings--in the solid-rocket boosters might malfunction because of the cold weather at launch time. They had grown accustomed to successful shuttle flights and relied on NASA's assurances that all was well.
The assumption that shuttle flights were routine and safe produced a kind of reporting that put pressure on NASA to launch Challenger on January 28, 1986, despite unsafe conditions. Richard G, Smith, head of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at the time of the Challenger explosion, argued that snide news stories about aborted launches had created "98 percent of the pressure" to go ahead with the ill-fated Challenger flight.
What Smith was referring to included statements by newscasters, such as those by Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News? Rather referred to news about one delay as "the latest on today's high-tech low comedy" and later said that because of postponements, the launch was now known as "Mission Impossible."20 What became newsworthy were delays--launches aborted for reasons of safety--and these delays became an ongoing story of implied incompetence, a news perspective that may have contributed to the disaster itself.
Stories about continuing issues generate audience identification and create the comforting sense of a pattern in the complexity of modern life.
The coverage of individuals who are certifiably newsworthy reflects this concern for continuity in the news. The newsworthy are those who have made news in the past, such as elected officials; athletic champions; and film, television, or rock stars. For ex-ample, a presidential candidate labeled a "front-runner"--a status conferred on those who win early caucus or primary votes--becomes more newsworthy and consequently gets more news coverage.
Some themes are woven into the very nature of newsgathering in the United States. These include the following:
1. Appearance versus reality. This reflects an emphasis on conflict and the "objective" role of skeptical news gatherers who uncover hypocrisy.
2. Little guys versus big guys. This theme reflects an emphasis on the personal and individual by taking a particular interest in the underdog or outsider or exposing corrupt and self-interested actions by the powerful against the powerless.
3. Good against evil. The essence of Links Of London Charms drama, this theme is related to crime as a news model and to investigative journalism as a norm for reporting and the reporter's role.
4. Efficiency versus inefficiency. This is usually an attempt to uncover waste and mismanagement, illustrating the emphasis on politics and government in the news.
5. The unique versus the routine. Reflecting a stress on novelty, this is illustrated by the human interest stories appearing at the end of most newscasts or in syndicated newspaper columns, such as "News of the Weird."
All these themes presume that there are identifiable forces at work in the world and that they usually are in conflict. News coverage influences us by defining what the sides are and what each side means.
