Abstract
This content analysis of the evening news of ABC, CBS and NBC for the 1978–1987 years, using the Vanderbilt archives, enables these authors to examine coverage of several infectious diseases and teenage suicide to see if television favors covering illness where it clusters, or near major news centers, where it is easier to cover. In general, this study finds television did go to where illnesses broke out, but tended to favor reporting urban over rural suicides. The study included coverage of AIDS, botulism, influenza, Legionnaires' Disease and measles, as well as teenage suicide.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.