Nilagia McCoy

Army Manpower and the War on Terror

A paper by Kevin Ryan, fall 2005 fellow, argues that Army manpower is a subject that is often misunderstood and misreported. How does the status of Army manpower affect the nation’s War on Terror? What if the manpower demands of concurrent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have sapped the country’s ability to deploy to the next […]

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Covering Controversial Science: Improving Reporting on Science and Public Policy

A paper by Cristine Russell, spring 2006 fellow, surveys the state of science journalism, and finds that as the pace of new developments in science and technology quickens, journalists are increasingly confronted with covering complicated technical information as well as the potential social, legal, religious, and political consequences of scientific research. More coverage of the

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Hamlet’s Blackberry: Why Paper Is Eternal

A paper by William Powers, fall 2006 fellow, makes the case that although print publications and paper are falling out of favor with the rise of digital technology, paper does still perform some tasks better. There are cognitive, cultural and social dimensions to the human-paper dynamic that come into play every time any kind of

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Journalism, Value Creation and the Future of News Organizations

A paper by Robert G. Picard, spring 2006 fellow, considers why news organizations have difficulty creating value. Picard argues that journalism and the news must improve value creation for five central stakeholders: consumers, advertisers, investors, journalists, and society. This paper examines why and how these organizations are delivering low value, shows why new value creation

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Covering Crime in Washington, D.C.

A paper by Kimberly Gross, spring 2006 fellow, examines the nature of local television news coverage of crime and its effects on emotional response. Gross presents the results of a content analysis of two months of local television news coverage of crime from a network affiliate in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. Consistent with what

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Soft Power and Hard Views: How American Commentators are Spreading over the World’s Opinion Pages

A paper by Julia Baird, spring 2005 fellow, examines the export of American thought by documenting the presence of American columnists on newspaper opinion pages around the world in the 2000s. Baird assesses what impact, if any, 9/11 and the war in Iraq had on the demand for American opinion by editors who act as

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The Role of Georgia’s Media — and Western Aid — in the Rose Revolution

A paper by David Anable, fall 2005 fellow, examines the role of the Georgian media in the country’s Rose Revolution and the impact that Western media development aid played in enabling this to occur. It also looks at what has happened to the country’s media since the revolution, at the U.S. policies underlying the aid

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News Consumption and the New Electronic Media

A paper by Douglas Ahlers, spring 2005 fellow, looks at the hypothesized shift of news consumption from the traditional media to the online news media. Ahlers argues that the hypothesized mass migration of news consumption behavior is not supported by the facts. Two-thirds of the U.S. adult population had not shifted to online news consumption

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Death in Wartime: Photographs and the “Other War” in Afghanistan

A paper by Barbie Zelizer, spring 2004 fellow, addresses the formulaic dependence of the news media on images of people facing impending death. Considering one example of this depiction – U.S. journalism’s photographic coverage of the killing of the Taliban by the Northern Alliance during the war on Afghanistan – the paper traces its strategic

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Measuring Media Diversity: Problems and Prospects

A paper by Richard Schultz, spring 2005 fellow, analyzes the debate surrounding the FCC’s Diversity Index and explores the question of how to best measure media diversity. Given the centrality of media diversity as a longstanding policy goal of the FCC, the question of what constitutes diversity must be at the heart of any attempt

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“All Successful Democracies Need Freedom of Speech”: American Efforts to Create a Vibrant Free Press in Iraq and Afghanistan

A paper by David Rohde, spring 2005 fellow, examines American efforts to create a vibrant free press in Iraq and Afghanistan. A $200 million project in Iraq was the largest attempt ever by the United States, or any country, to help create independent media in another nation. Run by the Pentagon, it was a near

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