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Nightly network news coverage of the accident at Three Mile Island raised questions about the nature of TV news as well as the capacity of the three major networks to inform viewers during disasters. A key emphasis in TV news is story-telling, especially the weaving of fables. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the content of netework news coverage of TMI reveals differences between networks in techniques of newsgathering and reporting, but even more so in stories told: CBS narrated a tale of responsible political and technological elites, ABC a nightmare of common folk victimized by elites, and NBC a story of resignation and demystification. Coverage of TMI, when compared to network coverage of other crises, suggests that in reporting disasters CBS, ABC, and NBC respectively and consistently construct rhetorical visions of reassurance, threat, and primal assurance.

Although image making has been part of Ameri can politics for some time, recent years have focused attention upon the professional image maker and the use of the mass media in image making. There are two major theories of image making, one stresses qualities a candidate projects, the other the predispositions voters project upon candidates. Each thesis attributes differing tasks to the political image maker. A more useful view is to regard image making as a joint enterprise of candidates, profes sionals, and voters. Since voters seek certain role and sty listic qualities in their ideal candidates, professional image makers act as brokers using the mass media to highlight appropriate qualities of clients. In striving to make voters aware of, interested in, and favorable to their candidates, professionals have adopted a variety of changing tech niques in the last three decades, techniques gradually adapted to the underlying character of mass communica tion. The relative success of these techniques depends upon the specific goals sought and the increasing profes sionalization of American political campaigns.