Clinton’s hearing reaches headlines. The mediatisation of the Benghazi hearing in two leading U.S. newspapers

This article presents preliminary findings of a research project aimed at investigating textual outcomes in the press of Hillary Clinton’s first congressional hearing on the Benghazi attacks on September 23rd, 2013. The analysis focuses on the way in which journalists of two main U.S. newspapers use congressional hearing material, and centres specifically on the strategies that are deployed to incorporate the hearing either to endorse/criticise Clinton’s version of the events, or to present a more neutral stance, as may be expected of high-reputation newspapers. The analytical model that has been employed relies on the model Catenaccio (2008) developed drawing on van Dijk and Bell to analyse the presence of corporate press releases in the media and has been applied to the genre of congressional hearing. Findings confirmed that, in terms of input source usage, specific processes and strategies are similarly employed by The New York Times and The Washington Post and are aimed at avoiding explicit endorsement of Clinton’s point of view.