Title Compassion fatigue : how the media sell disease, famine, war, and death / Susan D. Moeller

Published New York : Routledge, 1999

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Description 1 online resource (viii, 390 pages) : illustrations Contents Compassion fatigue -- Covering pestilence: sensationalizing epidemic disease -- Mad cows and Englishmen -- Ebola -- Covering famine: the famine formula -- Ethiopia -- Sudan and Somalia -- Covering death: the Americanization of assassinations -- Covering war: getting graphic about genocide -- Conclusion Summary Hailed as "great accomplishment" by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Susan Moeller's Compassion Fatigue warns that the American media threaten our ability to understand the world around us. Why do the media cover the world in the way that they do? Are they simply following the marketplace demand for tabloid-style international news? Or are they creating an audience that has seen too much -- or too little -- to care? Through a series of case studies of the 'Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse"--Disease, famine, death and war -- Moeller investigates how newspapers, newsmagazines and television have covered international crises over the last two decades, identifying the ruts into which the media have fallen and revealing why. Throughout, we hear from industry insiders who tell of the chilling effect of the mega-media mergers, the tyranny of the bottomline hunt for profits, and the decline of the American attention span as they struggle to both tell and sell a story. But Moeller is insistent that the media need not, and should not, be run like any other business. The media have a special responsibility to the public, and when they abdicate this responsibility and the public lapses into a compassion fatigue stupor, we become a public at great danger to ourselves Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 323-372) and index Notes Print version record Subject Disasters -- Press coverage -- United States War -- Press coverage -- United States Television broadcasting of news -- United States Sensationalism in journalism -- United States LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES -- Journalism. Disasters -- Press coverage Sensationalism in journalism Television broadcasting of news War -- Press coverage Massenmedien Berichterstattung Meinungsbildung katastrophē Sensatie. Massamedia. Berichtgeving. Guerre -- Dans les médias -- États-Unis. Catastrophes -- Dans les médias -- États-Unis. Sensationnalisme -- Dans la presse -- Etats-Unis. United States Form Electronic book LC no. 98014075 ISBN 9781135963088 1135963088 9780203900352 0203900359 9780415920988 0415920981 9786610407033 6610407037

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