In Atlanta, television news has been utterly obsessed with the Games and the bombing investigation, insuring a virtual blackout of political coverage.

Considering the mainstream media's virtual blackout of the topic, the last few weeks of his life were instructive, as I'll demonstrate in a moment.

In 1976, Equity introduced a policy of refusing to sell programming to the South African Broadcasting Corporation, an action that led to a virtual blackout of British television in apartheid South Africa.

The official Chinese press imposed a virtual blackout on Mr. Deng's excursion to the capitalist-style special economic zones of Shenzhen and Zhuhai in southern China.

Ms. Bhutto, an Oxford classmate of Mr. Khan in the 1970's, reacted to his criticisms of the Government by imposing a virtual blackout on news coverage of the hospital.

Poulenc thrives today in performance despite a virtual blackout in the theoretical and critical literature.

None of this helped at first, and Monk spent the years 1947 through 1955 under a virtual blackout, rarely performing and recording, known unto only a few of New York's hardcore be-boppers.

"And we have a virtual blackout in both parties."

After a virtual blackout during the tense weeks of protest, the central newspapers have begun filing daily reports in the past week from the unsettled region.

To Californians, situated precariously on the Pacific Rim, Nixon's alarms about the menace of world Communism seemed pressingly important, while the state's newspapers imposed a virtual blackout on Douglas's campaign, burying her rejoinders to Nixon's charges of disloyalty.