ABSTRACT
Politics is the study of the changing value hierarchy, the pyramids of safety, income, and deference. The tragedy also became a world-wide political symbol rooted in the cross currents of Third World development, political independence, and capitalist economics. Thus, media coverage of the Bhopal tragedy foreshadows another sort of tragedy, one in which the politics of the short term almost certainly supercedes any agenda for long-term collective decision making. The New York Times, with its reputation as the national paper of record and its emphasis on international coverage, provided the most complete record of the Bhopal tragedy of any medium studied. In a story focusing entirely on technological hazards, the magazine linked Bhopal to hazardous nuclear waste dumping, environmental poisoning, and Love Canal. Television repeated the pattern of imagery used in the magazines, and it was videotape, rather than words that made the Bhopal story such ideal television material.
