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Journal of Communication Inquiry
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Circling the Wagons

Containing the Downing Street Memo Story's Impact in America

Douglas Bicket

St. John Fisher College, dbicket{at}sjfc.edu

Melissa Wall

California State University, Northridge

Within the context of a sharp rise in Americans' access to foreign news, especially since September 11, 2001, this article examines the limits of effectiveness of such foreign news influences in influencing the public debate on major policy issues within the United States. With the focus on a major U.K.-originated news story—the "Downing Street Memo" and subsequent leaked U.K. government documents—the article applies and expands the concepts of boundary maintenance and news repair beyond the domestic news realm and considers these as mechanisms by which the U.S. mainstream news media can still contain and limit the effectiveness of such stories in the U.S. public sphere. This study shows that although the rise of the Internet provides substantial new openings for important foreign-originated news stories in the United States, U.S. news media retain some ability to close down stories perceived as threats to their journalistic credibility.

Key Words: news media • journalism • news repair • boundary maintenance • Britain

Journal of Communication Inquiry, Vol. 31, No. 3, 206-221 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0196859907301085
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