In Changing their Wording, NBC Shapes Public Thinking

IN CHANGING THEIR WORDING, NBC SHAPES PUBLIC THINKING
[SOURCE: Baltimore Sun, AUTHOR: David Zurawik]
[Commentary] That so-called dinosaur, network TV news, let forth a loud roar last week. Who knew a fossil could make so much noise? The bellowing began Monday when NBC announced that it had decided to call the conflict in Iraq a civil war. Before 24 hours had passed, discussions about what constitutes a civil war was being debated on Capitol Hill, parsed on the front pages of newspapers nationwide and discussed on TV and radio talk shows. "Even if network news is a dinosaur, it still has a huge audience - an aggregate that can be matched nowhere else in the media - and that's a fact often overlooked," said Marquette University Prof Philip M. Seib, author of Going Live: Doing the News Right in a Real-Time Online World. "The lesson of the week is an unmistakable reminder that national broadcast networks can still have a profound effect on political discourse in this country in a way that no single newspaper, with the possible exception of the New York Times, can hope to have."
http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/tv/bal-ae.eye03dec03,0,6989473...