Source use in a "news disaster" account: A content analysis of voter news service stories Academic Article

abstract

• This quantitative content analysis examines source use for an eleven-week period in a news disaster story. The frequency of similar stories, which explain to readers, viewers, and listeners how the media do their work, has grown in the past forty years, and media observers are unsure what the change means. In this study, source affiliations and themes are evaluated in a census of stories about errors made by the media in reporting election night returns for the 2000 presidential race. News workers and other media-affiliated sources initially dominated the stories. They commonly explained how the reporting errors occurred or related factual information about the coverage. These sources and themes effectively blocked other affiliated and unaffiliated sources from evaluating the media's performance until later.

authors

• Sumpter, Randall

published proceedings

• JOURNALISM & MASS COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY

author list (cited authors)

• Sumpter, R. S., & Braddock, M. A.

citation count

• 8

complete list of authors

• Sumpter, RS||Braddock, MA

publication date

• January 2002

publisher

• SAGE Publications  Publisher

published in

• Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly: devoted to research and commentary in journalism and mass communication  Journal

keywords

• Clinical Research

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1177/107769900207900302

start page

• 539

end page

• 558

volume

• 79

issue

• 3

URL

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/107769900207900302