When news isn’t news

2003 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana ben-Aaron
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Good News ◽  
News Values ◽  
Public Response ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Human Conduct ◽  
Future Consumption ◽  
Negative Face

Most research studies of news assume a bias toward the extreme, the unusual, and the new. However, much of the content of newspapers consists of the routine and the predictable. Using a collection of articles from the New York Times sampled from 1852 to the present, this paper examines news about one subject, national holidays, with a view to explaining the pragmatic functions of such formally unnewsworthy articles. In the national holiday news cycle, the newspaper first announces or forecasts the observances, and after they have taken place the public response is evaluated for enthusiasm and decorum. The standard of behaviour is reinforced through small human interest stories that contain inferential gaps encouraging readers to draw on their knowledge of human conduct. The basic principle being inferred is politeness toward the nation, in the sense of respecting its positive face by anticipating and following its wishes, and respecting its negative face by avoiding challenges and focusing on citizen responsibilities rather than citizen rights. The result is news stories that violate some of the most important “hard” news values previously identified by researchers, by being predictable, ambiguous, static, and generally “good news”. The analysis also shows how news which is apparently free of conflict can prepare readers for future consumption of conflict-oriented news.

What’s a Dog Story Worth?

2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (04) ◽  
pp. 819-823 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Atkinson ◽  
Maria Deam ◽  
Joseph E. Uscinski
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Regional Newspapers ◽  
News Event

ABSTRACTJournalists consider the importance of events and the audience’s interest in them when deciding on which events to report. Events most likely to be reported are those that are both important and can capture the audience’s interest. In turn, the public is most likely to become aware of important news when some aspect of the story piques their interest. We suggest an efficacious means of drawing public attention to important news stories: dogs. Examining the national news agenda of 10 regional newspapers relative to that of theNew York Times, we evaluated the effect of having a dog in a news event on the likelihood that the event is reported in regional newspapers. The “dog effect” is approximately equivalent to the effect of whether a story warrants front- or back-page national news coverage in theNew York Times. Thus, we conclude that dogs are an important factor in news decisions.

scholarly journals Spreading the Good News: Analyzing Socially Shared Inspirational News Content

2018 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 872-893 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qihao Ji ◽  
Arthur A. Raney ◽  
Sophie H. Janicke-Bowles ◽  
Katherine R. Dale ◽  
Mary Beth Oliver ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Language Use ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Good News ◽  
News Story ◽  
The New York Times ◽  
News Content ◽  
News Stories ◽  
News Online

Past research indicates that people often share awe-inspiring news online. However, little is known about the content of those stories. In this study, more broadly defined “inspirational” articles shared through The New York Times website over a 6-month period were analyzed, with the goals of describing the content and identifying characteristics that might predict inspirationality and measures of retransmission. The results provided a snapshot of content found within inspirational news stories; they also revealed that self-transcendent language use predicted the inspirationality of a news story, as well as how long an article appeared on a most shared list.

Chronic pain: Sources framing of post-traumatic stress in The New York Times

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 336-351
Author(s):  
Barbara Barnett ◽  
Tien T Lee
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Negative Thoughts ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Public Policy Decisions

Post-traumatic stress (PTS) is a common reaction after witnessing a violent event, and individuals who have experienced trauma may relive the event, avoid people or situations that remind them of the trauma, or experience negative thoughts and hyperarousal. When symptoms persist, an individual may receive a medical diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). While nearly eight million Americans, including combat veterans, have PTSD in a given year, few studies have explored how the condition is represented in the mass media. This content analysis examines sources’ characterization of PTSD in New York Times articles. Results show that news stories framed PTSD as a long-term problem, with little chance for recovery, a frame that could negatively affect public policy decisions.

“Education Is Our Occupation”

PMLA ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 127 (4) ◽  
pp. 1010-1015
Author(s):  
Celeste Langan
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The Public ◽  
Robert Hass ◽  
Freedom Of Thought ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Res Publica

When my berkeley colleague the poet robert hass wrote for the new york times an account of the occupy cal event of 9 november 2011, he described the “strange contingencies” that struck his mind (even as the police baton struck his body). Since that day, when I was arrested (the police used a technique they call a hair-pull takedown) for linking arms with students to protect tents erected in solidarity with Occupy and in defiance of the campus's no-tents policy, I too have felt those contingencies. My decision to participate was no accident; I wanted to resist the conceptual and practical attenuation of the ideal of education as a res publica. But at the time of my arrest I had not yet recognized how much Occupy resonates with issues I have made the center of my scholarly life: vagrancy, mobility, freedom. This brief essay considers the new inflection Occupy has given to my understanding of the work of education. To exercise freedom of thought is not merely to engage heterodox ideas; it is to make thinking take place and take its time. It is to refuse attempts to constrain, by regulations concerning time, place, and manner, the public exercise of thinking.

scholarly journals The story is that there is no story: media framing of synthetic biology and its ethical implications in the New York Times (2005–2015)

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (03) ◽  
pp. A02 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Giordano ◽  
Yi-Lin Chung
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Media Framing ◽  
Public Knowledge ◽  
Academic Ethics ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Ethical Implications

Despite low public knowledge of synthetic biology, it is the focus of prominent government and academic ethics debates. We examine the “NY Times” media coverage of synthetic biology. Our results suggest that the story about synthetic biology remains ambiguous. We found this in four areas — 1) on the question of whether the field raises ethical concerns, 2) on its relationship to genetic engineering, 3) on whether or not it threatens ‘nature’, and 4) on the temporality of these concerns. We suggest that this ambiguity creates conditions in which there becomes no reason for the public at large to become involved.

scholarly journals Big Data and Journalism: How American Journalism is Adopting the Use of Big Data

Novum Jus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-89
Author(s):  
Julián Rodríguez ◽  
Andrew M. Clark
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Big Data ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The United States ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
The Public ◽  
Digital Format ◽  
American Journalism ◽  
Depth Interviews

This research uses in-depth interviews with three data journalists from the Houston Chronicle and the New York Times in the United States to describe the role of data journalists, and to illustrate how and why they use big data in their stories. Data journalists possess a unique set of skills including being able to find data, gather data, and use that data to tell a compelling story in a written and visually coherent way. Results show that as newspapers move to a digital format the role of a data journalist is becoming more essential as is the importance of laws such as the Freedom of Information Act to enable journalists to request and use data to continue to inform the public and hold those in power accountable. 

THE PEDIATRICIAN AND THE PUBLIC

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1953 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-95
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York Times ◽  
World Health ◽  
Executive Board ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Council ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Press ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Emergency Fund

The General Assembly, the Social Commission and the Economic and Social Council of the World Health Organization are to discuss the future of the United Nations' International Children's Emergency Fund during this year of 1953. Editorials have appeared in the press (New York Times, Apr. 6, 1953 and Chicago Daily Sun-Times, May 27, 1953) criticizing our government for not having paid U.N.I.C.E.F. its 1953 voluntary contribution of $9,814,000. A number of Fellows of the American Academy of Pediatrics have become concerned as to the plight in which U.N.I.C.E.F. finds itself and requested the matter be brought to the attention of the Executive Board at its meeting May 28-31, 1953 in Evanston. It was the opinion of the members contacting the Board that the work of the U.N.I.C.E.F. should be continued. The presence of this item on the agenda inspired the preparation of the enclosed resume of the evolution of W.H.O. and U.N.I.C.E.F. As the Executive Board found this information of value, they have suggested that it might be made available to other Fellows through publication in your section in Pediatrics. Our members may also be interested in the resolution passed by the Executive Board after deliberating on this subject.

Melancholia's Meerkat: A Poetic Leap

PMLA ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 124 (5) ◽  
pp. 1719-1728
Author(s):  
Jody Greene
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
Humanitarian Crisis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Actual Change ◽  
First Time ◽  
President Bush ◽  
Math Problems ◽  
Rational Side

I think we learn to be worldly from grappling with, rather than generalizing from, the ordinary.—Donna HarawayThe question that preoccupies me in the light of recent global violence is, Who counts as human? Whose lives count as lives? And, finally, What makes for a grievable life?—Judith ButlerIn a New York Times editorial piece published in May 2007 about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Nicholas Kristof lamented, not for the first time, that people “aren't moved by genocide.” “The human conscience just isn't pricked by mass suffering,” Kristof continues, and yet, as both anecdotal evidence and scientific research have repeatedly shown, “an individual child (or puppy) in distress causes our hearts to flutter.” He recounts a series of psychological and sociological experiments that have borne out what he calls “the limits of rationality,” including the fact that people who hear narratives or see images that “prime the emotions” by focusing on the plight of an individual suffering creature—say, a baby or “a soulful dog in peril”—respond more vigorously to that suffering than those who have had their “rational side” primed by performing math problems. Perhaps, Kristof proposes in disgust, what the Darfur situation needs in order to achieve the public recognition it deserves—let alone to effect actual change—is not statistics of mass genocide but a very photogenic, if appropriately sad-eyed, poster child, “a suffering puppy with big eyes and floppy ears.” “If President Bush and the global public alike are unmoved by the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of fellow humans,” he despairingly concludes, “maybe our last, best hope is that we can be galvanized by a puppy in distress.”

When Journalism Met the Internet

2019 ◽  
pp. 379-393
Author(s):  
Mike Dillon
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
New Media ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Los Angeles Times ◽  
The Public ◽  
Digital World ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
Cast Doubt

American news organizations have long been criticized for failing to anticipate, appreciate and exploit the Internet as it became a fact of daily life in the mid-1990s. This chapter explores and analyzes the lack of planning that stymied the development of journalism on the Web and cast doubt on the viability of traditional public-service journalism with its enduring values of accuracy, fairness and advocacy. Specifically, the essay documents and analyzes the online debuts of two venerable “old media” news outlets (The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times) and two “new media” Web news outlets (Salon and Slate) in the mid-1990s by exploring the claims they made about their aims, purposes and expectations as they introduced themselves to the public via their salutatory editorials. It is a cautionary tale for a digital world that reconfigures itself in ever-quickening cycles.

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