Assessing newspaper preparedness for public health emergencies

Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly

Volumn 83, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 362-380

  Lowrey, Wilson ^a   Gower, Karla ^a   Evans, William ^a   Mackay, Jenn ^b  

^a Institute for Communication and Information Research

^b UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTOR; MEDIA ROLE; PUBLIC HEALTH;

EID: 33748638862     PISSN: 10776990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/107769900608300209     Document Type: Article

References (123)

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69. McQuail, Mass Communication Theory; Shoemaker and Reese, Mediating the Message.
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75. Kitzinger, "Researching Risk and the Media";
76. Renn, "Risk Communication and the Social Amplification of Risk."
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81. Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien, Community Conflict and the Press, 49.
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88. Kitzinger, "Researching Risk and the Media."
89. Kitzinger, "Researching Risk and the Media."
90. Wrigley, Salmon, and Park, "Crisis Management Planning and the Threat of Bioterrorism," 281-90;
91. Penrose, "The Role of Perception in Crisis Planning," 155-71;
92. Burnett, "A Strategic Approach to Managing Crises," 475-88.
93. Dunwoody and Griffin, "Structural Pluralism and Media Accounts of Risk."
94. Dunwoody and Griffin, "Structural Pluralism and Media Accounts of Risk";
95. Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien, Community Conflict and the Press;
96. Dunwoody and Griffin, "Structural Pluralism and Media Accounts of Risk."
97. Stephen Lacy and Alan Blanchard, "The Impact of Public Ownership, Profits, and Competition on Number of Newsroom Employees and Starting Salaries in Mid-Sized Daily Newspapers," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 80 (winter 2003): 949-69.
98. For example, Lacy, Coulson, and Martin, "Ownership and Barriers to Entry in Non-Metropolitan Daily Newspaper Markets."
99. Kees, "Newsroom Training: A National Survey Examines the Issues."
100. Richard Hall, Organizations: Structures, Processes and Outcomes, 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999);
101. Guth, "Organizational Crisis Experience and Public Relations Roles."
102. See Weaver and Wilhoit, The American Journalist in the 1990s;
103. and McQuail, Mass Communication Theory, for discussions of journalists' roles.
104. The states sampled were Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. The District of Columbia was also included in the sample.
105. See for example: Project for Excellence in Journalism, Local TV News Project: On the Road to Irrelevance, 2002, (15 June 2006);
106. C. Ann Hollifield, Gerald M. Kosicki, and Lee B. Becker, "Organizational vs. Professional Culture in the Newsroom: Television News Directors' and Newspaper Editors' Hiring Decisions," Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 45 (winter 2001): 92-117.
107. Ronald W. Perry and Michael K. Lindell, "Preparedness for Emergency Response: Guidelines for the Emergency Planning Process," Disasters 27 (December 2003): 336-50;
108. Media Security and Reliability Council, "Comprehensive Best Practices."
109. The questionnaire also included items about "general emergencies." To distinguish these from "public health emergencies," respondents were given the example of "weather emergencies" for general emergencies and "bioterrorism and infectious diseases" for public health emergencies. As an additional distinguishing cue to respondents, the words "public health" were boldfaced in items that pertained only to public health emergencies.
110. David K. Demers, "Structural Pluralism, Corporate Newspaper Structure, and News Source Perceptions: Another Test of the Editorial Vigor Hypothesis," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 75 (fall 1998): 572-92;
111. Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien, Community Conflict and the Press;
112. Douglas B. Hindman, Robert Littlefield, Ann Preston, and Dennis Neumann, "Structural Pluralism, Ethnic Pluralism, and Community Newspapers," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 76 (summer 1999): 250-63.
113. Perry and Lindell, "Preparedness for Emergency Response";
114. David Chandler and India Landrigan, A Journalist's Guide to Covering Bioterrorism, 2d ed. (Washington DC: Radio TV News Directors Foundation, 2004);
115. Media Security and Reliability Council, "Comprehensive Best Practices Recommendations";
116. Lowrey et al.,"Media Response to Bioterrorism."
117. Standardized skewness scores were within +/- 3 for both dependent variables. There were no significant outliers. The regression models' Durbin-Watson statistics ranged between 1.5 and 2.5, providing evidence of uncorrelated residuals. See Lyman Ott, Michael R. Longnecker, and R. Lyman Ott, An Introduction to Statistical Methods and Data Analysis (Boston, MA: PWS-Kent Publishing, 1988). Residual plots also do not suggest non-constant residual variance. There was no evidence of multicollinearity among independent variables, as SPSS' condition index reached no higher than 7 (a common rule of thumb is that a condition index of 15 or higher suggests collinearity problems).
118. Inferential statistics are used for significance testing, but care should be taken in interpreting results of the testing, as the response rate was relatively low.
119. Lowrey et al., "Media Response to Bioterrorism."
120. Dunwoody and Griffin, "Structural Pluralism and Media Accounts of Risk."
121. Dunwoody and Griffin, "Structural Pluralism and Media Accounts of Risk."
122. Lowrey et al., "Media Response to Bioterrorism."
123. Lowrey et al., "Media Response to Bioterrorism."