Bad Apples: Paradigm Overhaul and the CNN/Time “Tailwind” Story

Abstract

By examining the responses of journalists to the CNN/Time “Tailwind” story of 1998, this article suggests that discourse-extensive repair work, termed paradigm overhaul, occurs on news analysis broadcasts. Paradigm overhaul may be viewed as a particular type of paradigm repair work in which the logic of journalism is reasserted in response to an outside challenge. Paradigm overhaul is central to broadcasts such as CNN's Reliable Sources and FOX's Fox News Watch, on which journalists criticize challenges to the objective news paradigm and in the process overhaul that paradigm, reasserting objective news without altering or even questioning its underlying assumptions. The article further suggests that paradigm overhaul may be viewed as a ritual activity, providing mark-ers that define the boundaries of a journalistic interpretive community, an activity that masks societal and institutional constraints from news workers.