Coups, earthquakes and the holy family

It's International News Week in the political communication seminar, and that means it's time to talk about not just who gets covered but about what makes for "news" in the first place.

For most of the world, getting covered is pretty simple. Some decades ago, Mort Rosenblum called his book on the topic "Coups and Earthquakes," and that's not far off. The UK has a reliably fertile -- and white -- royal family; if you're an average country of 100 million or so like the Philippines, you basically need either terrorists or typhoons to be noticed.

Unless, of course, there's that certain something else -- your standard Roman coin dated 44BC, or some other token that draws the faithful together. Case in point, the fourth most important story of Monday evening at the Fair 'n' Balanced Network (the screen grab at right is from the home page; the more credulous hed at the top adorns the story itself):

A limestone box said to have once held the bones of the brother of Jesus was at the center of the most controversial forgery case in decades -- and it was allegedly vandalized by the Israeli government before being returned to its owner.
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