Making Local News - Softcover

Kaniss, Phyllis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226423484 ISBN 13: 9780226423487

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1997

Synopsis

Why do crimes and accidents earn more news coverage than development and policy issues affecting thousands of people? Filled with revealing interviews with both journalists and city officials, Making Local News is the first comprehensive look at how the economic motives of media owners, professional motives of journalists, and the strategies of media-wise politicians shape the news we see and hear, thereby influencing urban policy.

"Making Local News by Phyllis Kaniss . . . is significant. . . . If we can continue to get smarter about that which journalism leaves out or distorts in its coverage of politics, we may eventually get smarter about politics itself."—Mitchell Stephens, The Philadelphia Inquirer View

"A convincing analysis of the factors and forces which color how and why local issues do, or do not, become newsworthy." —Michael H. Ebner, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"This work serves as a reminder of the importance of a medium that is often overlooked until economic realities threaten its very existence." —Choice

"Kaniss is truly a pioneer in the study of local news."—Susan Herbst, Contemporary Sociology

About this title

From the Back Cover

This book looks at how such major local issues come to be recognized and covered by the metropolitan media. Why do certain policy questions come to receive intense coverage in the local media, while others are given only passing considerations or ignored? When a new plan or proposal is announced by local officials, what factors determine whether it will be covered with cheerleading fanfare or subjected to investigative scrutiny?

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226423484
• ISBN 13: 9780226423487
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 270