Citation

Mckay JM. Int. J. Mass Emerg. Disasters 1996; 14(3): 305-319.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1996, International Sociological Association, International Research Committee on Disasters)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper illustrates that in the response and recovery phases of the 1994 bushfire disaster in New South Wales, Australian and overseas newspaper reporting of the causes of bush fires focused on scapegoating. The popular scapegoats were arsonists or failure of a public authority to provide fire-breaks. Thus two items were featured, whereas the causes of most bushfires are multidimensional, and official reports really attribute a cause. This paper applies an existing seven-theme classification of the content of newspaper reports to the 1994 event. Newspapers from the local community were examined as were two other papers from fire-prone communities in Australia. In addition, reports in two international papers were examined for accuracy. This paper establishes that causes are scapegoated but that accuracy of impact figures is preserved despite the distance.