The 'war on terror', described as the most important framing case of our time, is analysed in this study of elite newspaper coverage primarily in terms of the 'attribution of responsibility' for specific terrorist attacks. This is justified by the role of attribution in terms of 'primary definition', the exertion of political power in the text, and the constitutive role of attribution in public opinion formation. In addition to an analysis of how the coverage 'framed' attribution, the study also attempts to speak to the validity or otherwise of the 'mythical metanarrative' interpretation of the 'war on terror'. The study proceeds to analyse the nature of news sources drawn upon in the coverage, most specifically again with respect to the construction of attribution. The latter necessitates the creation of a novel coding scheme to distinguish the specific nature of attributive 'contributions' by various news sources, and in this manner it is hoped to explicate the nature of the ‘discursive regime’ employed which specified who could speak, what they could speak about, and in what circumstances. The three case studies chosen for analysis are the Bali attacks of 2002, the London attacks of 2005 and the Mumbai attacks of 2006, as reported in the first seven days by The Sydney Morning Herald, The Times of London, The Times of India and The New York Times. The study concludes with the presentation of an explanatory framework that situates the most significant factors influencing newspaper coverage at the ideological, political and media routine levels, before constructing an evaluative framework that judges the coverage by three commonly accepted standards of normative journalistic performance. Finally, a new ‘contingent model’ of primary definition is proposed.