ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the rising tension between contemporary journalists and the people and the events they cover. The copy pencils have been replaced by the ballpoint and tape recorder, the video terminal and the television screen. The eighth floor of the Time & Life Building, in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center, is equipped with a large suite, richly appointed, for meetings, receptions, dinners and other ceremonials. The chapter shows that the News Media on Trial is very selective and opinionated reporting mostly on two trials that pointedly symbolized many of the tensions in the press-public-government triangle. The News Media at Work examines those tensions outside the courtroom, in other closely related practices and problems that have more to do with who owns the news media and the way journalists work and behave than with formal trials and law.
