What Qualifies As Crisis Coverage & Why Does It Matter?: Establishing Characteristics of Crisis Reporting Using 2015 Terror Attacks in Paris

The Paris attacks serve as a recent and relevant example of the differences between regular news reporting and crisis reporting, based on the circumstances of the crisis in question. Three main aspects serve as dominant features in crisis reporting than in day-by-day reporting. These are timeliness, authority, and the level of the crisis (often the death toll or infrastructure damage). This paper will examine the Paris attacks from November 2015, the circumstances surrounding ISIS at the time, and the way news media reported on the crisis event. By taking these topics into account, one can see that although there are several problems with credibility that news media deals with, when a crisis occurs, the news media are still the first source of information a lot of people, globally, turn to for answers. The purpose of this research is to make reporters and citizens alike, aware of what influences their choice in news media, and determines what they believe as being credible. The best way to look at what makes the news credible is to look at a type of coverage which tends to have the least amount of room for partisan interpretation, a short amount of time for news updates, and an importance factor, often established by the severity of the crisis at hand.