Part Two 
“Reporting Legal Realities” 

Chapters Five, Six, and Seven shift focus to the institutional proclivities of modern mass media to see how news coverage and other commentary affect and are affected by the sorts of instrumental endeavors examined in Part One.  In these three chapters Haltom and McCann examine media coverage of tort litigation and the complex mix of factors that produce legal knowledge in the news and in other cultural productions (especially television and films).   In Chapter Five the authors relate results from their study of national newspapers over nearly 20 years.  Chapter Six provides the definitive analysis of the role of news media in producing knowledge of "The Case of the Spilled McDonald’s Coffee."  How news media figured into battles over nicotine and nicotine-delivery in the 1980s and 1990s is the focus of Chapter Seven.



Questions?  Confusions?  Please contact the authors.