News, Truth and Crime
The Westray Disaster and its Aftermath

Publisher:  Fernwood Publishing, Canada
Year Published:  2005
Pages:  112pp   Price:  $14.95   ISBN:  1-55266-173-3
Resource Type:  Book
Cx Number:  CX6728

McMullan examines the media coverage devoted to the ten year (1992-2002) aftermath of the May 9, 1992 explosion where 26 miners died at the Westray mine.

Abstract: 
McMullan examines the media coverage devoted to the ten year (1992-2002) aftermath of the May 9, 1992 explosion where 26 miners died at the Westray mine. This is media content analysis; some of the book's material has been drawn from lectures, conferences, and seminars at universities. It follows on Fernwood Publishing's collection (edited by C. McCormick) The Westray Chronicles; a case study in corporate crime (1999). The focus of the current project was to study the connections between power, knowledge, and truth in three related institutional areas: the media, the criminal justice system, and the public inquiry. McMullan recounts the tragedy and the subsequent media coverage in about 100 pages, including 23 convincing tables. His book is to be the first in a series to be a systematic study of the disaster and aftermath; it lays the groundwork and the theses. His bibliography includes a good listing of other books which cover, among other topics, news coverage of disasters and corporate crimes from other places, such as Catholic priests and sexual abuse, the Goteburg dancehall fire, Ford Pintos, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Yellowstone forest fires. Unfortunately, the book has no index.