Daily News, Eternal Stories

This title demonstrates the ways news articles draw from age-old tales that have chastened, challenged, entertained, and entranced people since the beginning of time. Through an exploration of actual New York Times articles, award-winning professor and former journalist Jack Lule reveals mythical themes in reporting on topics from terrorist hijackings to Huey Newton, from Mother Teresa to Mike Tyson. Beneath the facade of current events, Lule identifies such enduring archetypes as the innocent victim, the good mother, the hero, and the trickster. In doing so, he sheds light on how media coverage shapes our thinking about many of the confounding issues of our day, including foreign policy, terrorism, race relations, and political dissent.