A special, limited opportunity to manipulate access arises with live coverage, where little or no editing occurs. The opportunities for manipulation are limited to persons who are newsworthy for some other reason–winners of awards or of major sports events, for example. In such circumstances, people Links Of London Bracelets can use live television coverage to make a statement they could not otherwise make; in the process they have access to an audience they could not reach if the statement were made under other circumstances and had to compete for regular news coverage.

One example occurred in 1990, when profanities uttered by the heavy-metal band Guns ‘N’ Roses were heard by millions of television viewers tuned in to Monday night’s American Music Awards ceremony. The profanities brought a barrage of complaints and an apology from ABC.

On September 6, 1989, comedian Andrew Dice Clay was banned for life from MTV after making sexist remarks and using profanity on a live nationwide broadcast, the MTV Video Music Awards.

Remarks in a print interview can have comparable effects. When in late December 1999 the Atlanta Braves’ relief pitcher, John Rocker, told Sports Illustrated that a black teammate was “a fat monkey,” said the thing he didn’t like about New York was “the foreigners,” and described riding the subway to Shea Stadium as akin to a ride through Beirut, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig demanded that the pitcher undergo psycho-logical testing. A reporter for the New York Times explained, “His mental health aside, Mr. Rocker’s diatribe has not been good for baseball’s image, which is not good for business.”

Other instances have been more calculated. For example, a Native American woman was able to read a statement on Indian rights when she appeared on Marlon Brando’s behalf to refuse an Oscar he had won, and Vanessa Redgrave was able to make a controversial statement about Palestinian rights during her Oscar acceptance speech. Early in the 1988 primaries, presidential candidate George Bush agreed to an interview with CBS anchor Dan Rather on the condition that the interview is broadcast live. This move guaranteed that his remarks could not be edited. His success in controlling the agenda of the interview helped Bush dispel reporters’ image of him as indecisive, an impression that they referred to as “the wimp factor.”

Admittedly, such opportunities are rare and special, but live coverage provides opportunities to air highly controversial messages and to reach exceptionally large and captive audiences.

In other words, a wide range of staged events is routinely treated as news. The news media can be manipulated into coverage of these pseudo-events because of what they define as news and because of the constraints under which they operate. Because cost and the need to meet deadlines with fresh stories are important to those who produce the news, there is pressure to cover events that have the dramatic, visual, concise characteristics the media crave. Congressional hearings, news conferences, and pseudo-events have these characteristics. In covering such events, the reporter minimizes the amount of background Links Of London Charms information needed and the amount of time it takes to assemble a story, and has the news peg for the story–the event itself. The problem, of course, is that by covering such an event, the reporter often accepts the assumptions of those managing it. The well-staged event invites coverage from a particular point of view.

An important adjunct to the press conference and to other staged events is the press release. The press release attempts to create a context for viewing a specific event. Written to include basic information (who, what, when, where, how, why) required by editors, it is filled with dramatic, synthetic statements related to the emerging news item.