How Does the Business of News Influence Terrorism Coverage? Evidence From The Washington Post and USA Today

Observers argue that the business of news is responsible for worsening the coverage of terrorism, but exactly how economic considerations influence coverage is controversial. Based on an analysis of over 1600 articles from The Washington Post and USA Today, we find that concerns about the effects of economic pressures on terrorism reporting are exaggerated. The business climate affects coverage, but the long-term impact of market pressures on coverage is modest. Articles about terrorist violence are increasingly prominent, but coverage of counterterrorism remains robust. Efforts to inoculate the press against the worst excesses of the market are unnecessary.     

Infant death scene investigation and the assessment of potential risk factors for asphyxia: a review of 209 sudden unexpected infant deaths

At the Wayne County Medical Examiner Office (WCMEO) in Detroit, Michigan, from 2001 to 2004, thorough scene investigations were performed on 209 sudden and unexpected infant deaths, ages 3 days to 12 months. The 209 cases were reviewed to assess the position of the infant at the time of discovery and identify potential risk factors for asphyxia including bed sharing, witnessed overlay, wedging, strangulation, prone position, obstruction of the nose and mouth, coverage of the head by bedding and sleeping on a couch. Overall, one or more potential risk factors were identified in 178 of 209 cases (85.2%). The increasing awareness of infant positions at death has led to a dramatic reduction in the diagnosis of sudden infant death syndrome at the WCMEO. This study suggests that asphyxia plays a greater role in many sudden infant deaths than has been historically attributed to it.     

New Technology Meets an Old Teaching Challenge: Using Digital Video Recordings, Annotation Software, and Deliberate Practice Techniques to Improve Student Negotiation Skills

There is a world of difference between teaching negotiation theory, which pertains to conceptual understanding, and teaching negotiation skills, which pertain to actual behavior in real‐world situations. The principle of reflective practice is widely used for theoretical instruction. Deliberate practice, however, is a more powerful model for skills training. Cognitive scientists have discovered that subjects will learn skills best when they perform well‐defined tasks at appropriate levels of difficulty, and when they are given immediate feedback, an opportunity to correct their errors, and an opportunity to practice until the tasks become routine. To satisfy the deliberate practice conditions for large graduate‐level negotiation courses (some as large as seventy students), students were assigned to use webcams with their laptop computers to video record their negotiation exercises. Before each exercise, students were assigned to prepare for and to concentrate on performing two or three well‐defined tasks. Students reviewed these recordings and commented on their performances in a journal before uploading the videos and journals to an assigned network folder. The instructor and teaching assistants then reviewed the journals and specified portions of the videos and provided individual written feedback to the students. The instructors found that student negotiating skills have improved significantly using this new system. In comparison with earlier semesters, students also felt they were involved in a more intense and personal learning experience. A majority of students reported they intend to apply the principles of deliberate practice in their professional lives after graduation. The authors have found this method continues to challenge their ability to identify and describe the skills used by expert negotiators. As an addition to this new methodology, two of the authors have spearheaded the development of video annotation software, known as “MediaNotes,” to help students and instructors review, comment upon, and learn from video recordings of negotiations. Based on their experiences using the software to support deliberate practice, the authors expect this tool to initiate a significant advance in our ability to recognize and describe expert negotiation behavior and in students’ ability to improve their negotiating skills.     

Bankruptcy During Foreclosure: Home Preservation Through Chapters 7 and 13

Filing for bankruptcy is the primary legal mechanism by which homeowners in foreclosure can exert control over ownership of their home, yet little is known about the interplay among bankruptcy types, mortgage servicers, state foreclosure laws, and home foreclosure auctions. We analyze 4,280 lower-income homeowners in the United States who were more than 90 days late paying their 30-year fixed-rate mortgages. Two dozen organizations serviced these mortgages and initiated foreclosure between 2003 and 2012. We identify wide variation between mortgage servicers in their likelihood of bringing a property to auction. We also show that when homeowners in foreclosure filed for bankruptcy, foreclosure auctions were 70% less likely. Chapters 7 and 13 filings both reduce the hazard of auction, but the effect is 5 times greater for Chapter 13, which contains enhanced tools to preserve homeownership. Bankruptcy's effects are strongest in states that permit power-of-sale foreclosure or withdraw homeowners' right-of-redemption at the time of auction.     

Codes in context: How states,markets, and civil society shape adherence to global labor standards

Transnational business regulation is increasingly implemented through private voluntary programs – such as certification regimes and codes of conduct – that diffuse global standards. However, little is known about the conditions under which companies adhere to these standards. We conduct one of the first large‐scale comparative studies to determine which international, domestic, civil society, and market institutions promote supply chain factories' adherence to the global labor standards embodied in codes of conduct imposed by multinational buyers. We find that suppliers are more likely to adhere when they are embedded in states that participate actively in the International Labour Organization treaty regime and that have stringent domestic labor law and high levels of press freedom. We further demonstrate that suppliers perform better when they serve buyers located in countries where consumers are wealthy and socially conscious. These findings suggest the importance of overlapping state, civil society, and market governance regimes to meaningful transnational regulation.