Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The wildfires that raged in Southern California last week featured numerous tales of bravery, tragedy, and plenty of missing pets. But one reason the disaster became such a major story was that journalists couldn’t resist raising the comparison—fair or not—with the 2005 fiasco on the Gulf Coast.
How have the news media covered the early months of the 2008 presidential election? Which candidate enjoyed the most exposure, which the best, and which the worst? With the race starting so early, did the press leap to horse race coverage from the start? A study by PEJ and Harvard’s Shorenstein Center has answers.
Three of the top-10 topics on the cable and radio talk shows last week directly involved the hosts themselves. They included an argument over the SCHIP health care program, the debate over U.S. policy in Iraq, and the strange case of Randi Rhodes.
What did last week’s flare up of violence in Pakistan, the scary news about a deadly “superbug,” and the ideological skirmishes among presidential hopefuls have in common? They were all top stories, but each seemed more suited for a different media sector.
The debut of Fred Thompson as a GOP debater helped make last week the second-biggest week of the year in the talk show universe for the 2008 presidential campaign. But so did a talk brouhaha over a more tangential topic involving the debate. Also, conservative Michael Savage lets a conservative pundit have it.
While crime coverage may seem like a staple of our news diet, last week was actually unusual in that three frightening stories of random violence generated coverage—with two making the top-10 story list. When it comes to crime however, the media attention span is usually short-lived.
While the rest of the media were focused on private security contractors in Iraq last week, the cable and radio talk hosts spent their time continuing to argue over a controversial phrase by Rush Limbaugh. Plus, another remnant of the Anna Nicole Smith saga makes the top-10 list.
For years, journalists struggled to report on the activities the private security firms in Iraq, companies who functioned in some ways as private armies. But last week, when the story of one such company moved from the streets of Baghdad to the hearing rooms on Capitol Hill, the media shed more light on the mystery.
Yes, newsmakers like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton were major topics in talk media last week. But it was two of the hosts themselves, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, who inspired some of the most passion.