Network news coverage of terrorism: The early years

Abstract

The electronic media influence public opinion by defining which national and international issues become significant, and shape public debates by the television images conveyed to the American audience. Based upon the Vanderbilt Television News Archive, this study examines the image projected in reporting of terrorist activities by the three major national networks, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), and the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). The reality presented by the media is explored by comparing variables such as story emphasis and depiction, frequency, length of coverage, and location in the newscasts.     

Private administration of a public function: The news election service

The United States government has no elections office and does not attempt to administer congressional and presidential elections. The responsibility for the administration of elections and certification of winners in the United States national elections rests with the states. The states divide election administration responsibilities between state and local election officials, whose objective is an efficiently administered honest election, with the ballots correctly tabulated. The formal structure of election administration in the United States is not capable of providing tirely results of the presidential and congressional election. Similar structural difficulties in other policy areas often result in ad hoc operating agreements or informal cooperation among agencies at different levels of the federal system. In the case of election administration, however, the public officials have abdicated responsibility for election night aqgregation of the national Vote totals to a private organization, News Election Service, which is owned by five major news organizations. This private organization performs without a contract, without public compensation, and without supervision by public officials. It makes decisions concerning its duties according to its own criteria. The questions of responsibility and accountability have not arisen in part because of the private organization's performance record and in part because the responsibility was assumed gradually over a lengthy period without ever being evaluated as an item on the public agenda.     

Third World foundation news

This paper examines the evolving role of the UN specialised agencies in international responses to 'complex' emergencies, with particular reference to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Despite some shortcomings in both the organisation and execution of interventions, FAO does indeed - as it claims - have the capacity to be a 'key player' in complex emergencies in terms of emergency and longer-term rehabilitation as well as preparedness and early warning, and is playing this role with increasing confidence and competence. A main constraint is donor reluctance to fund the kind of operations in which FAO specialises, despite their potential cost-effectiveness and capacity, with careful design and implementation, to mitigate crises and reduce relief needs. This is seen as part of a wider donor failure to provide adequate support for responses to complex emergencies which go beyond 'pure' relief in acute, high profile situations-something which has increasingly become a preoccupation within and outside the UN system and points to the need for improved coordination and monitoring and evaluation systems.     

The true extent of global poverty and hunger: questioning the good news narrative of the Millennium Development Goals

The final report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) concludes that the project has been ‘the most successful anti-poverty movement in history’. Two key claims underpin this narrative: that global poverty has been cut in half, and global hunger nearly in half, since 1990. This good-news narrative has been touted by the United Nations and has been widely repeated by the media. But closer inspection reveals that the UN’s claims about poverty and hunger are misleading, and even intentionally inaccurate. The MDGs have used targeted statistical manipulation to make it seem as though the poverty and hunger trends have been improving when in fact they have worsened. In addition, the MDGs use definitions of poverty and hunger that dramatically underestimate the scale likely of these problems. In reality, around four billion people remain in poverty today, and around two billion remain hungry – more than ever before in history, and between two and four times what the UN would have us believe. The implications of this reality are profound. Worsening poverty and hunger trends indicate that our present model of development is not working and needs to be fundamentally rethought.     

The threat to the U.S.

The Vietnam War had a major impact on the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The war helped to split the struggle for social justice at the very time that it was achieving its greatest successes. The factionalism over whether or not to support the war decimated the crusade for human equality.     

30名外国媒体记者赴陕采访

五月的三秦大地阳光明媚,气候宜人.由外交部新闻司与陕西省人政府外事办公室共同组织邀请的美国时代周刊、美国格蒂图片社、路透社、法新社、日本共同社、日本广播协会(NHK)、欧洲新闻图片社、俄罗斯国际文传电讯社、新加坡联合早报等11个国家的19家媒体的30名记者,于5月23日-28日来陕西采访.