The Media, the Politics of Truth, and the Coverage of Corporate Violence: The Westray Disaster and the Public Inquiry

This paper studies the relationship between news sources, knowledge claims and the social construction of truth surrounding the public inquiry into the Westray mine disaster from 1995 to 1998. We draw on Michel Foucault’s concept of the “politics of truth” and Stanley Cohen’s ideas about “states of denial” to demonstrate how formal media processes constituted “regimes of truth” about Westray. We argue that news discourse about the public inquiry was framed differently from news coverage in the immediate aftermath of the explosion (1992–1993). Later press reporting constructed a new “regime of truth” around political scandal but corporate crime was written out of existence in the truth-telling exercises of the press.