Suchergebnisse

Advocates of "intelligent design" have gained media coverage for their cause despite having little support in the scientific community. This study of news about ID—specifically, the 2005 controversy and trial in Dover, Pennsylvania—shows the story's appeal to press values such as conflict, drama, balance, and fairness. News was framed in terms of politics and culture wars, which appealed to the press impulse toward balance and fairness. The coverage illustrates how an idea or movement of questionable motive or dubious value could win coverage when media adhere to professional standards such as fairness and balance.

E. L. Godkin was the influential editor of both the Nation (1865–1899) and the New York Evening Post (1881–1899). This study concentrates on Godkin's attitude toward journalism, which was multi-dimensional; he saw journalism as having power to change for good but he also saw much pandering to popular audiences in the era of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. Godkin himself wanted to make money and to change society, and he was successful in both ways. But he assailed editors and reporters for grubbing after facts and sensationalizing them. Godkin, like some others in this period between centuries, had mixed feelings about journalism, but he defended freedom of expression and the role of the press in democracy.

Part I. New Rumley to Appomatox -- The dream -- The sun of glory -- The general -- Gettysburg -- Shining star -- Checkmate -- Part II. Requiem and resurrection -- From Civil War to Indian wars: 1865-1876 -- Crossing the river -- Custer and the press: mixed verdict -- The frontier, the fittest, and Custer -- The Custer story in history -- Visitors

A Q-analysis of 13 motives for ethical decision-making by 17 professional journalists and 49 mass communications students showed that most were "mainstream" ethicists whose ethical concerns centered on credibility, their personal sense of morality, the public's need to know, and the standards of their field and their employer. A small number of respondents in each of the two samples seemed motivated by knowledge as power and were mildly unconcerned about knowledge of ethics. They were willing to use their work in a punitive way.