NCJ Number
140611
Date Published
Unknown
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This paper analyzes the March 9, 1992 Newsweek cover story on violence in America's public schools.
Abstract
The author carefully describes the layout, headlines, captions, and photographs used on the Newsweek cover, index page, and first page of the feature article. The author points out several examples of what he calls fallacious reasoning on the part of the article editors and critiques the "visual, visceral advocacy journalism" used to bring the reader to the conclusion that kids with guns constitute a genuine crisis for American public education. The evidence presented in the remainder of the Newsweek article should have proven its implicit assertions that schools in which firearms violence occurs are representative of public schools nationally, that students who engage in firearms violence are typical American school children, and that the total number of cases makes gun violence in schools a national phenomenon. Instead, the author of this paper contends that little evidence is provided to support the claims asserted in the magazine headlines.