News coverage of human rights is important for education, the protection of rights, and the development of foreign policy. The relationship between the media and human rights makes it essential to know how human rights are reported by the media. Previous studies on news coverage of human rights have examined only the amount of coverage, not its content. This study analyzes human rights coverage in the New York Times, Time magazine, and the CBS Evening News for a ten-year period, 1978-1987. An examination of the different indexes determined what rights and which countries received media attention. I found that the three news outlets present a similar view of human rights, focusing on civil and political rights; there is very little attention given to economic, social, and cultural rights. Geographical coverage focuses on a small number of countries primarily in two regions, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
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