Metacoverage

Metacoverage is a term used to describe a type of news story that contains one, or both, of the following main topics: (a) the behaviors, roles, standards, products, and practices of individual journalists or news organizations; (b) the roles, activities, and practices of publicity experts whose main occupation is to garner media visibility and coverage for political clients, such as candidates, governmental officials, political parties, or for business clients, such as corporations or celebrities. In short, metacoverage is news about the news media itself or about publicity processes, some of which, but not all, are covered in terms of how well they succeed at garnering favorable news coverage.

Metacoverage is present in both print and broadcast news formats specifically devoted to how, how much, when, and to what effect the news media cover a particular issue or topic. In radio and television news it is found in programs such as CNN's Reliable Sources, Media Watch segments of the PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and National Public Radio's On the Media. In print news, beat writers (e.g., Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post) cover the news media in articles specifically labeled “media.” Also, columnists and editorialists regularly discuss topics and issues in light of how, how much, when, or to what effect the news media cover events and issues (e.g., the ongoing Iraq War). In all of these instances, metacoverage can be considered an extension of press criticism found, for example, in trade magazines such as the American Journalism Review.

In both print and broadcast news, metacoverage is also found in hard news stories that are not designated by specific newspapers or TV news networks as being about the media. For example, metacoverage is prevalent in news stories with the following topics: politics (e.g., presidential campaigns, the Iraq War), crime (e.g., the 2002 Washington, D.C.–area sniper case, the 2005 conviction and sentencing of the so-called BTK killer), natural disasters and human tragedies (e.g., the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005), celebrity tragedies and trials (e.g., the death and funeral of Princess Diana in 1997, the 1995 O. J. Simpson criminal trial and acquittal), and business malfeasance (e.g., the aftermath of the 2001 Enron scandal).

There are thee principles that underlie theorizing and empirical research on metacoverage. Together, these principles clarify the conceptual definition of this type of news. The first principle is that, while metacoverage can be a feature of any narrative format that purports to be news, it is generally conceived as being a feature of mainstream news. Therefore, the bulk of research on metacoverage centers on mainstream news coverage. To be sure, metacoverage is a salient feature of discourses outside of the mainstream press. In fact, [Page 453]recent work attests to the regularity in which discussion about the standards, behaviors, and products of the mainstream news media, and discussion about publicity attendant to press coverage, permeates blogs, talk radio programs, and political comedy programs. Still, the bulk of content analyses, both qualitative and quantitative, are conducted on mainstream news stories, a fact that suggests two corollaries to the first principle: (1) that the mainstream press regularly incorporates press and publicity topics from ancillary formats into its coverage (e.g., cable news segments about what bloggers, talk radio hosts, or political comedy hosts say about media coverage of a political candidate) and (2) that, owing to the power of the mainstream press in terms of its agenda-setting, priming, and framing functions, metacoverage in the mainstream press has more influence on political learning and political attitudes than metacoverage on talk radio, blogs, or political comedy shows.

...