Deborah Shapley, in Daedalus (Fall 1982),
1172 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, Mass.
02134.
Defense issues, because of their great complexity, are among the most difficult for the media to cover. But even the best newspaper and televi- sion treatments of such topics reveal serious flaws, argues Shapley, Washington editor of Nature magazine.
Thus, CBS News's widely publicized five-part series on "The Defense of the United States," aired in June 1981, suffered from TV newsmen's need to "find...