Like-mindedness on the evening news?

Does it really matter which network you watch to get your day's fill of national news? One way to find out is to access the Television News Archive at Vanderbilt University. The Archive describes itself as "the world's most available, extensive and complete archive of television news." Since 1968, the Archive has abstracted the evening newscasts of the major broadcast networks. Go to the Vanderbilt News Archive at http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/ and follow the link to the site's collection of evening news abstracts. Browse the abstracts of the evening news broadcasts of ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC for the week of May 10 through May 14, 1999. How does the news content provided on these four networks lend support to the argument that these major news outlets think alike when they put together their evening news programs? Is there some evidence of diversity in their presentations as well?




"Anyone with a modem . . . "

Matt Drudge is perhaps the world's best known cyberjournalist. His web site, The Drudge Report, reportedly receives thousands of hits per day, making it one of the most visited sources on the internet for news and political information. Locate The Drudge Report at http://www.drudgereport.com/, and follow the link to a transcript of Matt Drudge's speech to the National Press Club. Read over the introductory remarks from National Press Club President Doug Harbrecht, and then the speech by Mr. Drudge. (In other words, you can stop reading when you get to the Q&A part of the talk.) What evidence do you find here that members of the traditional press corps and media find The Drudge Report to be a threat to the media as an institution? How is Mr. Drudge's approach to journalism more consistent with a majoritarian view of democracy than the mainstream media's, which Mr. Drudge would likely characterize as elitist?