Telling “Our” Story Through News of Terrorism

The central point of this article is that journalists accomplish their work through a narrative duality. During everyday news, journalists apply a professional narrative that represents a balance between their core journalistic values and the social pressures from their working world. When society's core values are under threat—such as with physical or political violence or terrorist attacks—journalists switch to a cultural narrative that moves the public mind back toward the dominant cultural order. US and Israeli newspaper coverage of two terrorist events in Israel was analyzed to explore this idea. The analysis suggests that when news about terrorism is culturally proximate, the professional narrative tends to lead. When terrorism is culturally remote, however, cultural narratives must be relied on more heavily to assist journalists’ sense-making, and the news is more mythically-laden. Findings show that cultural affinity affects the choice of myth used, with distant events more tied to cultural references.