During coverage of an important world crisis, such as terrorism, warfare or assassinations, the media generally follow a system of conventions of objectivity to sound neutral, get the story across to their readers, and get their facts right. These conventions that they use are: using official sources, focusing on the president, avoiding indepth analysis and focusing on immediate events. Such conventions were found in Virginia’s The Free Lance-Star’s first three days of coverage of Pearl Harbor. Throughout the early coverage of the attack of Pearl Harbor, and the beginning of the United States entry into World War Two, the conventions of objectivity seemed to be used to allow the public to create their own sense of fear over the attack by the
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Today’s coverage of the war included updated reports on losses at Pearl Harbor, ideas that Japanese ships and planes are off the coasts of America preparing to invade, and reports of the Government’s almost unanimous declaration of war against Japan. With this edition of the paper, the majority of the content was still from reports from the military stationed at Pearl Harbor, as well as telling of Japan’s other exploits in the Pacific, including “Japanese Bombers Blast Philippines,” “Thailand Gives Up After Brief Fight,” and “Japs Raid Singapore,” which I believe was helpful in leading Americans to draft for the military. Lastly, another article of this issue of The Free Lance-Star that I believe was helpful to garner support for the war was an article named “Virginian Listed Among Casualty” which being a Virginian paper seems like it was used to outrage the Virginian …show more content…
With the lack of personal insight on the Attacks by the Japanese across the United States and the numerous threats across the East and West Coasts, I was surprised with the successful neutral attitude portrayed by The Free Lance-Star. Throughout coverage of wars, however, this is quite common as newspapers ' self-censor themselves by following the conventions of objectivity as to not go directly against the government. With this neutrality that the paper creates by following this process, the newspaper is able to “socially construct the war” by giving the public the information on the events that they need to know with the aim to gather the public’s support, which the coverage of Pearl Harbor nearly unanimously
Today’s coverage of the war included updated reports on losses at Pearl Harbor, ideas that Japanese ships and planes are off the coasts of America preparing to invade, and reports of the Government’s almost unanimous declaration of war against Japan. With this edition of the paper, the majority of the content was still from reports from the military stationed at Pearl Harbor, as well as telling of Japan’s other exploits in the Pacific, including “Japanese Bombers Blast Philippines,” “Thailand Gives Up After Brief Fight,” and “Japs Raid Singapore,” which I believe was helpful in leading Americans to draft for the military. Lastly, another article of this issue of The Free Lance-Star that I believe was helpful to garner support for the war was an article named “Virginian Listed Among Casualty” which being a Virginian paper seems like it was used to outrage the Virginian …show more content…
With the lack of personal insight on the Attacks by the Japanese across the United States and the numerous threats across the East and West Coasts, I was surprised with the successful neutral attitude portrayed by The Free Lance-Star. Throughout coverage of wars, however, this is quite common as newspapers ' self-censor themselves by following the conventions of objectivity as to not go directly against the government. With this neutrality that the paper creates by following this process, the newspaper is able to “socially construct the war” by giving the public the information on the events that they need to know with the aim to gather the public’s support, which the coverage of Pearl Harbor nearly unanimously