On April 29th, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that it would “attend a regional conference on Iraq later this week, setting the stage for the first cabinet-level meeting between Iran and the United States since the end of 2004.”  (New York Times, April 30)

The New York Times published this story on the 30th of April, with other publications such as The Sydney Morning Herald and the UK independent releasing their stories later on May 1st.

It’s also interesting to note the length of the articles by the three papers. The Times uses about 950 words for their article, the SMH uses just over 550 and the UK Independent uses just 270 words. The importance of the article to the publication is evident in the amount of explanation offered by the paper and determined by how interested their audience will be in the story – this refers to proximity.

All articles refer to Condoleezza Rice which adds the news value of prominence to the story and use her quotes to support the story.

“This is not a meeting about the United States and Iran,” Dr Rice told ABC News.

“This is a meeting about Iraq.” (SMH, May 1)

 Other news values employed are impact and consequence, currency and conflict.   

 The UK Independant focused more on Ms Rice than the other two papers, including

“Ms Rice, who has been subpoenaed by the Democratic Congress to testify about the administration’s pre-war claims about Iraq’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons, was speaking 48 hours before President Bush vetoes a $124.2bn (£62bn) war spending bill that includes a timeline for withdrawing US forces from Iraq.” – which was omitted from the other papers (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article2496685.ece)