The "big picture" scan dominates analysis of the facts?

See Holloway blog for further discussion of the buckyball story.

From within the text concerning Baum's 1990 article in C&E News:


The average reader of a newsmagazine is not a close reader. He or she scans, often passing through technical bits which are not immediately clear. If the overall scan makes sense, they accept the small bits. The overall impression of an article is often, as it is for any reader in any market, controlled by the framing of the presentation. In this case, the article is framed by the language and pronouncements of the boxes, and the introduction which asserts that two camps of scientists are in conflict.

At upper left on the page, the heading SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY. The title, Ideas on Soot Formation Spark Controversy is printed in almost sensationally large type, large enough that the six words require two lines. The article is in three columns, and the center column text on the first page is broken about a third of the way down with the designation NEWS ANALYSIS between two horizontal set offs.