9/11 and the American Press

This chapter discusses U.S. news reportage in the wake of 9/11 and how certain habits and norms in American national security journalism drove the coverage. It reviews scholarship on the U.S. news media’s relationship with U.S. government and society, especially in the context of international issues and events. The foreign policy narrative in Washington is set by a small cohort of U.S. government officials, in addition to international news reporters and editors for elite news agencies like the New York Times and Washington Post. Through interviews with U.S. officials and reporters, the chapter also examines the roles the American government and news outlets play in setting the agenda and framing events for the American public and how the U.S. press maintains an ethnocentric bias in its foreign reportage.