ABSTRACT
In keeping with the intellectual traditions that defined much British critical media research at that time, Steve Chibnall’s Law and Order News is situated within a Marxist framework for understanding media, power and ideology. The politician seeking a ‘good press’ must appear ‘firm but fair’, his approach must seem honest and open, never allowing dogmatism to distort his perception of economic and political realities, and in his public and private behaviour he must be seen to uphold the values of family life – love, respect, loyalty, faithfulness, consideration. News is about what is new, what has just happened. This means that it is centrally concerned with the present rather than the past, change rather than inertia, and events rather than long-term processes. This means large and important segments of reality are not communicated because they cannot be successfully cast in the conventional news form.
