How have the September 11 attacks changed the news?

I was reading this week's edition of the Weekly Spin from PR Watch and it had a link to this study done by ADT Research.

The US study basically shows that news on terrorism and foreign policy have pushed out a lot of the other domestic topics like drugs, crime and technology. It's only logical to expect that such a major topic like terrorism will be given more news focus, even if it is to the detriment of other, seemingly less important issues.

It made me wonder, though. What are we missing out on now that the news is dominated so heavily by just two or three subjects, and with what discourses are these major news items being shown? Fair enough terrorism is a major issue, but journalism provides the first draft of history, and if someone was to look back in 50 or 100 years' time they could be mistaken for thinking that 2001 was the year everything stopped but war and terrorism.


It's just not accurate reportage. Life has gone on [mine has, at least] after September 11, but the news media obviously hasn't. The world news pages of the newspapers are drowning in Iraq/Iran/Pakistan/Israel stories, and most of thearticles from Europe or Asia are wierd and wonderful ones like `German girl eats sand for breakfast`, and `Chinese man dies while on the job`.