This study investigated newspaper coverage of Florida red tide blooms in four metropolitan areas of Southwest Florida during a 25-year period, 1987-2012. We focused on how journalists framed red tide stories with respect to environmental risk, health risk, and economic risk. We determined risk to be a key factor in this news coverage, being an…

A study was conducted at two major midwestern newspapers to ascertain the effects of video display terminal (VDT) use on the work and perceptions of copy editors. The methodology consisted of observation of one full day of copy desk work at a VDT by a single local news desk copy editor and one full day of work at VDTs by a regular weekday shift of…

To explore the relationships between the news media and public officials, a study focused on the perceptions of the capital press corps coverage held by members of a state legislature. Data were collected in Wisconsin, where the state legislature consists of a 33-member senate and 99-member assembly. Questionnaires containing semantic differential…

Shows that newspapers moving to new reporting and editing systems, such as the video display terminal, must develop the new electronic system to meet copy-flow needs. Notes that new systems must conform to a newspaper's gatekeeping needs, not vice versa. (RL)

Because little scholarly or industry research has reviewed the position of sports journalists on the matter of professionalism, a study analyzed newspaper sports journalists' evaluations of their professional orientations and their perceptions of the orientations of their colleagues who write "hard" and "soft" news. The study…

An investigation was made of the impact of the visual display terminal (VDT) on the "gatekeeping" function of the newspaper editorial staff, in which editors selectively evaluate stories for publication. The VDT is a computerized device that displays copy on a screen and provides for highly flexible alteration of copy. Six hours of field…

This paper is based on a review of the literature that included reports from the Inter-American Press Association's general assembly in Los Angeles in October 1984, the mid-year meeting of the Inter-American Press Association in Panama City in March 1985, and the 1983 world press freedom review of the International Press Institute. Other material…

To investigate whether political assertions were interjected into American sports coverage of the 1984 Olympic games and which direction those assertions took, a study examined the Los Angeles Times' coverage of the games in its award-winning special supplement sections. The "Times" included these special supplements in its papers from…

Print journalism and journalism research have contributed many concepts, principles, and communication techniques to the field of political communication. An examination of the indexes of "Public Opinion Quarterly,""Journalism Quarterly," and the "Journal of Communication" through the mid-1960s indicates the evolution of the study of print media…

A review of the literature on the computerization of newspaper newsrooms shows that since 1960, computers have assumed an increasingly important role in information collection, news writing and editing, pagination, and news transmission. When newspaper libraries are computerized, reporters are able to find information more quickly and to use…

A review of the literature for the past 7 years reveals that the computer serves several key functions in the newsroom. Its more dominant role is in word processing, or internal copy processing regardless of the source of the copy. Computers are also useful in reviewing documents for content analysis, for survey research in public opinion polls…

Although much is known about how governments and major media organizations stand on some world press problems, some important actors in the debate--small- and medium-size newspapers in the United States--have been ignored. The editors of these newspapers are gatekeepers who, like their counterparts on large elite newspapers, play a fundamental…