Covering the body
Subtitle: the Kennedy assassination, the media, and the shaping of collective memory
By: Barbie Zelizer.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 1992
Place of publication: Chicago
Language: eng
Number of pages: 299
Subjects: Kennedy, John F. 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Journalism -- United States -- History -- 20th century
Description: Covering the Body (the title refers to the charge given journalists to follow a president) is a powerful reassessment of the media's role in shaping our collective memory of the assassination--at the same time as it used the assassination coverage to legitimize its own role as official interpreter of American reality. Of the more than fifty reporters covering Kennedy in Dallas, no one actually saw the assassination. And faced with a monumentally important story that was continuously breaking, most journalists had no time to verify leads or substantiate reports. Rather, they took discrete moments of their stories and turned them into one coherent narrative, blurring what was and was not "professional" about their coverage.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 267-290) and index.
Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D)--Annenberg School for Communications, University of Pennsylvania, 1990.