ABSTRACT
The earthquake disaster story is a mainstay of US media, which, along with Hollywood, has been actively shaping a US culture of disaster. 1 Famously, Mort Rosenblum denounced Associated Press’ Latin American coverage for containing nothing but assassination and disaster stories. 2 We know from gate keeping studies that stories of coups, crises, and catastrophes dominate US international news coverage even today. 3 The US media stand accused of following a “journalism of exception” in which international news is portrayed as distinct from US news, 4 and therefore is full of war, conflict, and disaster, so much so that Americans suffer “compassion fatigue.” 5 We know that media have changed their framing of news in recent times 6 and under war conditions. 7 Nevertheless, coverage of disasters remains narrowly framed: Birkland found that only one-third of 345 stories on earthquakes published in The New York Times between 1990 and 2002 mentioned the size of the event, and just one-quarter noted the damage done, that science and future threats were common features, but that mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery—the four well-known stages of disaster response—were at best mentioned in these news stories and were far less important as story lines than the other topics. 8 Social scientists have good reasons not to expect sober reflection on relief measures and long-term policies from news media coverage of earthquakes.
