“Of Gods and Men”: Selected Print Media Coverage of Natural Disasters and Industrial Failures in Three Westminster Countries
-
Kevin F. Quigley
and
John Quigley
Abstract
This article examines selected print media coverage of a domestic natural disaster and domestic industrial failure in each of three Westminster countries: Australia, Canada, and the UK. It studies this coverage from several perspectives: the volume of coverage; the rate at which the articles were published; the tone of the headlines; and a content analysis of the perceived performance of key public and private institutions during and following the events. Its initial findings reveal that the natural disasters received more coverage than the industrial failures in each of the newspapers considered. There was also no significant difference in the publication rate across event type or newspaper. In each case, government was assessed at least as frequently and negatively as non-government actors, particularly during and following industrial failures. The manner in which government and non-government actors were assessed following these events suggests that, contrary to government claims that owners and operators of critical infrastructure (CI) are responsible for its successful operation, government in fact is “in the frame” as frequently as the industry owners and operators are. In addition, the negative assessments of governments following industrial failures in particular may prompt over-reaction by policy makers to industrial failures and under-reaction to natural disasters. This inconsistency is indeed ironic because the latter occur more often and cost more, both financially and socially. We reviewed 340 newspaper articles from three different newspapers: The Australian’s coverage of the Canberra bushfires and the Waterfall train accident, The Globe and Mail’s (Canada) coverage of Hurricane Juan and the de la Concorde overpass collapse, and The Daily Telegraph’s (UK) coverage of the 2007 floods and the Potters Bar train wreck. Our sample size is small; our ability to compare across newspapers and countries limited. Further research is warranted.
We would like to thank our research assistants, Penney Young, Gillian Carter, Casey Hilliard, Reama Khayat, and Emily Pond, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments. We would also like to thank participants at the Critical Infrastructure Protection Conference at Fo Guang University, Yilan, Taiwan, in October 2011, and the Disasters in the Infrastructure: Response and Assessment Workshop hosted by Dalhousie University’s CIP Initiative in Halifax, Canada, in October 2010. Participants at both of these events provided helpful comments on earlier drafts of this work. Finally, we would like to acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Grant No. 410-2008-1357).
6 Appendix
Performance Assessment of Key Sectors – Canberra Bushfires.
| Sector | Number of Positive Assessments | Number of Negative Assessments | Net Difference | Ratio of Negative to Positive Assessments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NFP Community (Emergency Response)* | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0:4 |
| Health Care | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0:2 |
| Electrical | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0:2 |
| Fire | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0:1 |
| Communications and IT | 1 | 2 | 2:1 | |
| Police | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0:1 |
*NFP: Not-for-Profit. This includes organizations such as the Red Cross.
Performance Assessment by Key Sectors – Hurricane Juan.
| Sector | Number of Positive Assessments | Number of Negative Assessments | Net Difference | Ratio of Negative to Positive Assessments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NFP Community (Emergency Response) | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0:3 |
| Health Care | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0:3 |
| Electrical | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1:3 |
| Police | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0:4 |
| Fire | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0:5 |
| Ambulance | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0:3 |
| Military | 6 | 2 | 6 | 1:3 |
| Finance | 1 | 2 | 2:1 | |
| Water | 1 | 1 |
Performance Assessment by Key Sectors – UK Flooding.
| Sector | Number of Positive Assessments | Number of Negative Assessments | Net Difference | Ratio of Negative to Positive Assessments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NFP Community (Emergency Response) | 9 | 0 | 9 | 0:9 |
| Water | 1 | 8 | –7 | 8:1 |
| Police | 10 | 0 | 10 | 0:10 |
| Fire | 17 | 0 | 17 | 0:17 |
| Ambulance | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0:2 |
| Military | 6 | 0 | 6 | 0:6 |
| Communications and IT | 20 | 2 | 0:2 |
Performance Assessment by Key Sectors – Waterfall Train Accident.
| Sector | Number of Positive Assessments | Number of Negative Assessments | Net Difference | Ratio of Negative to Positive Assessments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transportation | 0 | 8 | –8 | 8:0 |
| Communications and IT | 0 | 1 | 1:0 | |
| Ambulance | 1 | 1 | ||
| Judiciary | 1 | 1 |
Performance Assessment by Key Sectors – De la Concorde Overpass Collapse.
| Sector | Number of Positive Assessments | Number of Negative Assessments | Net Difference | Ratio of Negative to Positive Assessments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transportation | 2 | 8 | –6 | 4:1 |
| Police | 1 | 0:1 | ||
| Manufacturing | 1 | 1 | 1:1 |
Performance Assessment by Key Sectors – Potters Bar Rail Accident.
| Sector | Number of Positive Assessments | Number of Negative Assessments | Net Difference | Ratio of Negative to Positive Assessments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transportation | 0 | 35 | –35 | 35:0 |
| Finance | 2 | 2:0 | ||
| Fire | 1 | 0:1 | ||
| Ambulance | 1 | 0:1 |
- 1
For the U.S., see US, Department of Homeland Security (2008); for the UK, see Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (2011); for Australia, see Australian Government, Attorney General’s Department (2011); for Canada, see Canada, Public Safety Canada (2011).
- 2
For example, see Public Safety Canada’s Canadian Disaster Database, the International Disaster Database at the Université catholique de Louvain or the Attorney General of Australia’s Emergency Management Australia Disasters Database. The Canadian Disaster Database, for instance, reports that natural disasters occur 40 times more frequently in Canada than conflict disasters. This ratio has been (relatively) stable for over 40 years.
- 3
All three countries derive their governance arrangements from the Westminster tradition. Canada and Australia are federal systems. The UK is traditionally described as a unitary state, though devolution introduced a degree of decentralization that is similar to a federation.
- 4
For Australia, see Australian Government, Attorney General’s Department (2011); for Canada, see Canada, Public Safety Canada (2011); for the UK, see Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (2011).
- 5
The Daily Telegraph publishes seven days per week; the other two newspapers publish 6 days per week. For the purposes of this research, this difference only affects volume of coverage and performance assessment of government and industry.
- 6
Local media coverage may well yield different results but they are not part of this research project.
- 7
Rowe, Frewer, and Sjoberg examine how science and technology risks are communicated to the public.
- 8
Using a one-sided Mann-Whitney test for comparing these samples resulted in an exact p value of 0.05.
- 9
If we were to assume that the publication time of each article was independent and identically distributed we would obtain a 95% confidence interval about the median of (26.57, 29.42). The strength of such an assumption would rely in part on the similarities between the distributions for each event.
- 10
We used the Mann-Whitney U test when comparing two sub-populations and the Kruskal-Wallis Test when comparing more than two (Conver 1999).
- 11
Using the Kruskal-Wallis test, the hypothesis that the three distributions in Figure 3 are sampled from the same distribution resulted in a significance value of 0.966 and thus would not be rejected at the 5% level.
- 12
Using the Mann-Whitney U test to assess the difference in the distributions between event types we obtained a significance value of 0.298 so the null hypothesis that the two distributions have the same underlying distribution would not be rejected at the 5% level.
- 13
Using a Kruskal-Wallis test, we obtained a significance test statistic of 0.004, thus a statistically significant difference at the 1% significance level.
- 14
For the U.S., see US, Department of Homeland Security (2008); for the UK, see Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (2011); for Australia, see Australian Government, Attorney General’s Department (2011); for Canada, see Canada, Public Safety Canada (2011).
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Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Masthead
- Research Articles
- Integrating Federal Approaches to Post-Cyber Incident Mitigation
- Cybersecurity and US Legislative Efforts to address Cybercrime
- The Military’s Response to Domestic CBRNE Incidents
- Building Public Health Preparedness and Food and Agriculture Defense Capabilities Using Whole Community and One Health Concepts
- Situated Response and Learning of Distributed Bushfire Coordinating Teams
- A Critical Examination of the Assumptions Regarding Centralized Coordination in Large-Scale Emergency Situations
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- Spontaneous Planning after the San Bruno Gas Pipeline Explosion: A Case Study of Anticipation and Improvisation during Response and Recovery Operations
- Understanding Incident Response to Unplanned Releases at Chemical Facilities
- A Study on the Responsiveness of Local Health Departments that Use Facebook
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- The Gulf Oil Spill and Economic Impacts: Extending the National Interstate Economic Model (NIEMO) to Account for Induced Impacts
- The Economic Value of Water: Providing Confidence and Context to FEMA’s Methodology
- Diffusion of Emergency Information during a Crisis within a University
- Resilience Building Policies and their Influence in Crisis Prevention, Absorption and Recovery
- Communication and News
- A Practitioner-Researcher Partnership to Develop and Deliver Operational Value of Threat, Risk and Vulnerability Assessment Training to meet the Requirements of Emergency Responders
- Regional Public-Private Interoperable Communications for Catastrophic Events Using a Cloud Computing Based Portal
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- Book Review
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Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Masthead
- Research Articles
- Integrating Federal Approaches to Post-Cyber Incident Mitigation
- Cybersecurity and US Legislative Efforts to address Cybercrime
- The Military’s Response to Domestic CBRNE Incidents
- Building Public Health Preparedness and Food and Agriculture Defense Capabilities Using Whole Community and One Health Concepts
- Situated Response and Learning of Distributed Bushfire Coordinating Teams
- A Critical Examination of the Assumptions Regarding Centralized Coordination in Large-Scale Emergency Situations
- “Of Gods and Men”: Selected Print Media Coverage of Natural Disasters and Industrial Failures in Three Westminster Countries
- Spontaneous Planning after the San Bruno Gas Pipeline Explosion: A Case Study of Anticipation and Improvisation during Response and Recovery Operations
- Understanding Incident Response to Unplanned Releases at Chemical Facilities
- A Study on the Responsiveness of Local Health Departments that Use Facebook
- Texas takes on the TSA: The Constitutional Fight over Airport Security
- The Gulf Oil Spill and Economic Impacts: Extending the National Interstate Economic Model (NIEMO) to Account for Induced Impacts
- The Economic Value of Water: Providing Confidence and Context to FEMA’s Methodology
- Diffusion of Emergency Information during a Crisis within a University
- Resilience Building Policies and their Influence in Crisis Prevention, Absorption and Recovery
- Communication and News
- A Practitioner-Researcher Partnership to Develop and Deliver Operational Value of Threat, Risk and Vulnerability Assessment Training to meet the Requirements of Emergency Responders
- Regional Public-Private Interoperable Communications for Catastrophic Events Using a Cloud Computing Based Portal
- It’s Never Too Late: Restructuring the Department of Homeland Security’s Regional Framework
- Finding the New High Ground in Cyber War: Malware as an Instrument of War
- Opinions
- Cybersecurity and Emergency Management: Encryption and the Inability to Communicate
- Assessing the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards after 5 Years: Achievements, Challenges, and Risks Ahead
- Book Review
- Emergency Management: The American Experience 1900–2010 (2nd Edition)
