ABSTRACT
Free, democratic societies, in their own self interest, permit the press to operate in a wide variety of areas. Within the marketplace, television, daily newspapers, and wire services act as the information equivalent of department stores. Most Americans choose to buy their information in the media department stores, in order to exert some form of organizational control over their minions, most of these media outlets operate on the basis of routines that have been established well in advance. One of the disasters of modern journalism is that youngsters graduating from journalism schools are put on the desk to edit copy without ever having worked as full-time reporters. In a fast-breaking, crisis-oriented story like the intifada, journalistic success is predicated on resources, sources, and trust between the reporter in the field and his or her supervisors. The intifada raised a whole series of complex issues that had major implications for the future of both the Middle East and US foreign policy.
