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The Life Cycle and Conventions of Nineteenth-Century Breaking News: Disaster Reporting of the 1875 Virginia City Fire

Coverage of the Virginia City, Nevada, fire of 1875 provides an opportunity to investigate the life cycle and conventions of breaking-news disaster reporting in the nineteenth century. Factors include timing, publication configuration, and rhetorical style of the story. Stories were characterized by the prominent use of dispatch reportage and a transition from summary content to more detailed content over the course of the first week. The escalating deployment of sensational language and content through the breaking-news cycle functioned to convey the degree of the disaster and to create a multisensory experience for the reader. Another discovery is the emergence of nationalistic discursive themes throughout the reportage, tying disaster reporting to the rhetorical construction of American national identity during the dynamic age of westward expansion.