Post 9/11 coverage of tragedies
The Columbia Journalism Review has a cool piece about how whenever journalists today report on explosions and/or tragedies in major cities– like the Grand Central-area steam pipe explosion– they have to go out of their way to confirm to readers that it wasn’t terrorism. It’s almost a knee-jerk journalistic response: First find the facts, then find some kind of city official to feed a “this isn’t the work of terrorist” quote to fit nice and snuggly within the article.
