“Portraits of Grief,” Reflectors of Values: The New York Times Remembers Victims of September 11

2003 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 166-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janice Hume
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
American History ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Public Memory ◽  
New York Times ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
The New York Times ◽  
The Public

The systematic examination of obituaries can provide a useful tool to explore the values of Americans of any era. Such an examination can help in understanding an important aspect of American culture, the public memory of its citizens. In the aftermath of 11 September 2001, the New York Times began publishing “Portraits of Grief,” small sketches recalling the lives of individuals lost in the terrorist attacks. This study examines the portraits as commemorations more than chronicles, as reflectors of values and memory at what may prove to be a significant turning point in American history.

Kennewick Man: coming to closure

Antiquity ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 89 (348) ◽  
pp. 1485-1493 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Meltzer
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Television News ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
The State ◽  
Popular Press ◽  
The New York Times ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Subject

Few human remains from the distant past have achieved the public visibility and notoriety of Kennewick Man (the Ancient One). Since his discovery in July 1996 in the state of Washington, he has appeared on one of America's best-known television news programmes,60 Minutes. He has been on the cover ofTimemagazine and in the pages ofPeople,NewsweekandThe New York Times.He has been the subject of popular press books (Downey 2000; Thomas 2000; Chatters 2001), and for many years running there were almost annual updates on his whereabouts and status inScience(some 30 in the decade following his discovery). That is saying nothing of the scholarly notice and debate he has drawn (e.g. Swedlund & Anderson 1999; Owsley & Jantz 2001; Steele & Powell 2002; Watkins 2004; Burkeet al. 2008), including a recently issued tome marking the culmination of almost a decade of study (Owsley & Jantz 2014a).

Myth and Terror on the Editorial Page: The New York Times Responds to September 11, 2001

2002 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Lule
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
New York Times ◽  
September 11 ◽  
The New York Times ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Editorial Page

This article studies New York Times editorials in the aftermath of September 11 from the perspective of myth. After defining myth and reviewing a wide range of scholarship that approaches news as myth, this article considers the ways in which editorials can be understood as myth. Textual analysis shows that over the course of four weeks, the New York Times drew from four central myths to portray events: the End of Innocence, the Victims, the Heroes, and the Foreboding Future. More than editorial “themes” or political “issues,” these were myths that invoked archetypal figures and forms at the heart of human storytelling.

scholarly journals Transparency as metajournalistic performance: The New York Times’ Caliphate podcast and new ways to claim journalistic authority

Journalism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146488492199731
Author(s):  
Gabriela Perdomo ◽  
Philippe Rodrigues-Rouleau
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
The New York Times ◽  
The Public ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Qualitative Thematic Analysis ◽  
Journalistic Field ◽  
The Times ◽  
Journalistic Authority

Transparency is increasingly touted as a strategic tool for elevating journalistic authority. Despite this push, literature has overlooked how transparency can be utilized for authority purposes in audiovisual artefacts. In this paper, we conduct a qualitative thematic analysis of The New York Times’ podcast Caliphate to examine how transparency is strategically weaponized to stake a claim to journalistic authority. Based on the premise that transparency is a metajournalistic performance – a type of journalism about journalism that is performative in acting on people’s perception of journalistic authority – we identify three of those metajournalistic performances in the podcast: Revealing the journalistic process, Constructing the reporter’s persona and Reaffirming the journalistic culture. Together, they exhibit a form of self-celebratory transparency that strategically performs boundary-setting, definitional control and legitimization functions, in a bid to impress audiences and have them recognize the journalistic authority of the Caliphate reporters and The Times. We conclude with the implications of these strategic performances of transparency. First, how it can be used by reporters to reinstate verticality over audiences. Second, how the journalistic culture (norms, values, practices, etc.) can be transparently projected outward (to the public) or inward (to the journalist themself) to elevate authority – a new concept for journalism studies. Third, how metajournalistic performances of transparency may reveal power dynamics within the journalistic field.

scholarly journals Hedging and Boosting the Rhetorical Structure of English Newspaper Editorials

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-51
Author(s):  
Sahar Zarza
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York Times ◽  
View Point ◽  
The New York Times ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
Official Position ◽  
Newspaper Editorials

To present the official position of newspapers effectively to the public, the editors’ awareness of the rhetorical structure and linguistic elements employed in editorials is essential. Yet, no studies have explored the use of hedges and boosters in each rhetorical move of the editorials. To realize the objectives, 240 editorials published in the New York Times (NYT) and New Straits Times (NST) were analyzed at both macro and micro levels. The results revealed that both types of newspapers prefer the use of hedges to boosters in editorials. Furthermore, it was revealed that hedges in the NYT editorials were less frequent than their Malaysian counterpart, while boosters in the NYT were more frequently used than in the NST. This reveals that it is a convention in editorials to be tentative in expressing their view point, while in comparison NYT seems to be more bold, and certain in expressing its stance than NST that is more tentative. In addition, in the NYT hedges and boosters were predominantly found in the third move (Justifying or refuting events) while in the NST they were found in the last move (Articulating position). This distribution could be due to the communicative purpose of each move.

“Don't Know Much About History”: The New York Times 1943 Survey of U.S. History and the Controversy it Generated

2012 ◽  
Vol 114 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Anne-Lise Halvorsen
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Young People ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
History Education ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Social Studies Education ◽  
The New York Times ◽  
The Public ◽  
Key Players ◽  
The Media

Background/Context Educators, parents, politicians, and the media often complain that young people know little history and compare them unfavorably to better-educated, earlier generations. However, the charge is exaggerated. Young people have performed poorly on history tests for decades. Students’ poor scores on one test in particular, the focus of this study, caught the nation's attention: the New York Times 1943 survey of college freshmen's history knowledge. Focus of Study This study examines the debate between supporters of history education and supporters of social studies education about the New York Times 1943 survey of college freshmen's history knowledge. In a report on the survey results, the newspaper claimed that these students knew little of their country's history, and not much more about its geography. The study places the survey in the broader context of history and social studies education in the early to mid-twentieth century. The study traces the origins of the survey and the debate between two key players, Allan Nevins and Erling Hunt, and describes reactions to the survey from educators, politicians, the media, and the public. In addition, the study describes how the American Historical Association, the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, and the National Council for the Social Studies counteracted the survey's findings to defend the teaching of history and social studies in the U.S. Research Design This study is a historical examination of the survey and the controversy it generated. The study uses archival resources, primary documents, contemporary newspaper and journal articles, and key players’ private letters, to explain how the survey was developed, reported on, and responded to. Conclusions Although the survey was not the first of its kind, and certainly not the last, and did not result in major changes in history and social studies instruction, it gave defenders of history education and social studies education a national battleground for their war of words. In examining the increased interest in the pedagogical debate on fact-based learning versus historical thinking skills that the survey provoked, this study brings perspective to a long-standing controversy, highlights the tension between advocates of history education and advocates of social studies education, and shows how the public reacted with deep alarm to the survey's results. This study highlights the divisive effects of using a single test to draw conclusions about the state of education. In the conclusion, the study calls for a negotiation by all sides in what are known today as “the history wars.”

scholarly journals Conceptual Metaphors in Political Discourse in Croatian, American and Italian Newspapers

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-76
Author(s):  
Nataša Stojan ◽  
Sonja Novak Mijić
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
The New York Times ◽  
The Public ◽  
Daily Newspapers ◽  
Usa Today ◽  
Newspaper Articles

Abstract In political discourse metaphors are frequently employed for persuading and manipulating the public. The aim of our research is to show whether there are differences in the use of source domains of conceptual metaphors among Croatian politicians in comparison with American and Italian politicians. The corpus of our research consists of political newspaper articles and interviews from Croatian, American and Italian daily newspapers (Jutarnji list, Večernji list, Corriere della Sera, Repubblica, ABC, USA Today and The New York Times), downloaded from newspaper archives. We can conclude that metaphorical expressions vary from language to language, but often the same metaphorical expressions appear in all languages. Expressions that frequently recur are victory, attack, battle, race, defense, splay, stage and role. Except for two ontological metaphors in Croatian examples, we can say that there is no major difference in the source domains between Croatian, American and Italian political discourse.

Breaking the Frame: Amy Waldman's The Submission and 9/11 Memorials

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 212-240
Author(s):  
KRISTINE MILLER
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Oral History ◽  
New York Times ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Literary Space ◽  
Building Process ◽  
Democratic Debate

This essay analyzes how various memorials create physical, temporal, and literary space for reflection about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. As a New York Times reporter, Amy Waldman contributed in 2001 to the “Portraits of Grief” before publishing in 2011 The Submission, her novel about the memorial-building process. Juxtaposing Waldman's fiction and journalism with the Reflecting Absence memorial in New York and Columbia University's 9/11 Oral History Project, the essay explores how memorialization of the attacks can build space for democratic debate rather than just a public monument to the idea of national grief.

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