{"id":89655,"date":"2011-08-21T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2011-08-21T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2011\/08\/21\/pej-news-coverage-index-august-1521-2011\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:12:14","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:12:14","slug":"pej-news-coverage-index-august-1521-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2011\/08\/21\/pej-news-coverage-index-august-1521-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama and Rick Perry Drive the Week\u2019s News"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

The economy and presidential election led the news agenda last week as two men vying for the same job played a dominant role in those narratives \u2014 President Barack Obama and Texas Governor Rick Perry. <\/p>\n\n

From August 15-21, the economy was the top story, accounting for 25% of the newshole according to the Pew Research Center\u2019s Project for Excellence in Journalism. That marked the ninth straight week the subject has topped the news even as the level of economic coverage dropped for the third consecutive week. <\/p>\n\n

Continued volatility in the stock market accounted for some of the economic stories last week. But the leading storylines involved Obama\u2019s Midwest bus tour focusing on the jobs and the economy as well as news that the president will deliver a major economic address next month. <\/p>\n\n

Obama largely had the economic stage to himself, where he registered as a dominant newsmaker in 37% of all the economic stories from August 15-21. No other figure accounted for more than 1%. (To be a dominant newsmaker, someone must be featured in at least 50% of a story.) <\/p>\n\n

The 2012 presidential campaign was the No. 2 story at 13%, down slightly from 15% the previous week when the Iowa GOP debate and subsequent straw poll \u2014 won by Congresswoman Michele Bachman \u2014 dominated coverage. Last week, campaign coverage focused on the buzz around newly minted candidate Rick Perry, who made news with some tough and controversial remarks about Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. <\/p>\n\n

For the week, Perry was a dominant newsmaker in 55% of all the election stories studied by PEJ. The next closest Republican candidate, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, was way back at 6%. <\/p>\n\n

The Obama Administration\u2019s call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down as well as the continued advance of Libyan rebels toward the capital of Tripoli drove coverage of the Mideast to 10% \u2014 the highest level since early June. (The reported fall of Tripoli, which could mark the end of Muammar Gaddafi\u2019s regime, occurred too late to be included in this report.) <\/p>\n\n

The fourth-biggest story was the European economy (3%). Coverage was fueled by a meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy that produced calls for closer European cooperation, but seemed to do little to calm jittery world markets. \u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n

The No. 5 story (also at 3%) was immigration policy with attention focused on a White House decision to suspend deportation of illegal immigrants who do not have a criminal record. Given the backdrop of a looming presidential election, some critics characterized the move as a political play for Hispanic votes. <\/p>\n\n

Obama Dominates Economic Coverage<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n

Coverage of the economy last week led every media sector studied by PEJ except for cable news, where the presidential campaign generated the most attention. The economy received the most attention in radio news, where it accounted for 42% of the airtime studied. <\/p>\n\n

One focus of that coverage was the president\u2019s tour of Midwest states where he talked about the economy and trained some fire on Republicans in Congress. An August 16 report by Fox News correspondent Ed Henry focused on the tougher rhetoric coming from the White House occupant. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cThe president continues to focus his punches on Republicans in Congress\u2026demanding they pass trade agreements plus an extension of the payroll tax cut,\u201d Henry reported, adding that on the stump, Obama had \u201cchanneled give \u2018em hell Harry Truman.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

Another aspect of the coverage of Obama\u2019s bus tour was whether it was about economics or presidential politics. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re in Iowa, it always feels like you\u2019re on a political trip,\u201d declared NBC\u2019s Chuck Todd in an August 15 report. That story went on to quote some disillusioned Obama supporters, including one woman who said she wanted the president to \u201cshow a little more leadership and less compromising.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

As some people were wondering about presidential leadership, word emerged last week of Obama\u2019s plan to deliver a major presidential address on economic policy, perhaps hoping to seize the initiative on that issue. \u00a0 <\/p>\n\n

On August 17, the AP reported that, \u201cSeeking a jolt for a wilting economy, President Barack Obama will give a major speech in early September to unveil new ideas for speeding up job growth and helping the struggling poor and middle class\u2026The president’s plan is likely to contain tax cuts, jobs-boosting infrastructure ideas and steps that would specifically help the long-term unemployed.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

And as was the case the week before, the unsettling roller coaster ride on Wall Street found its way into the economic headlines last week. <\/p>\n\n

On Friday August 19, a CNN report noted a continuing drop in stock prices amid \u201cmore fears of a recession. Friday’s trading came after the Dow plunged more than 400 points on Thursday, adding to what had already been steep declines for U.S. markets\u2026World markets dropped for a second straight session, as global economic fears continued to build.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

Perry Dominates Election Coverage<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n

For the second straight week, the 2012 campaign was the No. 2 story in the mainstream media. That seems to be a clear sign that after weeks of being shoved out of the headlines by the dramatic negotiations over the debt ceiling, the election is once again generating substantial media attention on a regular basis. <\/p>\n\n

And last week, that attention was trained largely on Perry, the tough-talking Texan who only announced his candidacy, after weeks of speculation, on August 13. Indeed, Perry\u2019s ability to attract press interest was part of last week\u2019s coverage.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

Michele Bachmann’s Iowa straw poll \u201cvictory lap was almost immediately upstaged by the arrival in the state and in the race of Texas Governor Rick Perry,\u201d noted correspondent Gwen Ifill on the August 15 edition of the PBS Newshour. \u201cAt a Republican Party dinner in Waterloo last night, Perry worked the crowd as if he had been in the race for far more than just 24 hours. Perry, who didn’t compete in Saturday’s straw poll, explained his late entrance into the race by comparing it to the 16 years it took to marry his wife.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

But with the media spotlight came some very quick vetting of the new candidate. A U.S. News & World Report story, for example,\u00a0 took aim at some of Perry\u2019s claims of economic success in Texas. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cPerry’s mission is to convince voters that if elected, he can replicate the \u2018Texas Miracle\u2019 on a national scale,\u201d the story stated. \u201cBut like most things in politics, the details of Perry’s record during more than a decade as governor of Texas aren’t as convincing as the sound bites. In fact, as voters, campaign contributors and key interest groups scour his record, they may notice that he’s not the small-government conservative they want him to be, and that his economic policies are somewhat airy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

One of Perry\u2019s attention-grabbing moments last week was his statement<\/a> that if Fed Chairman Bernanke \u201cprints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y\u2019all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

Those remarks connecting Bernanke to treason brought some quick criticism from a number of quarters, including former George W. Bush advisor Karl Rove. In a segment on the August 17 broadcast of MSNBC\u2019s Hardball, Politico\u2019s Julie Mason suggested the controversy around that statement was part of Perry\u2019s introduction to a bigger political stage. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a fascinating process because he hasn\u2019t been through the ringer of the national vetting,\u201d she added. But that seemed to begin in earnest last week. <\/p>\n\n

The Rest of the Week\u2019s News<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n

Coverage of the continued violence and upheaval in the Middle East hit 10% last week with major developments regarding Syria and Libya. In the former case, it was the tougher line coming out of the U.S. and in the latter, the continued battlefield successes of the rebel forces fighting Gaddafi. The subject generated the most coverage last week, 13%, on the broadcast networks\u2019 news shows. <\/p>\n\n

In addition, a flare-up of violence between Israelis and Palestinians following a deadly August 18 attack near the Israel-Egypt border filled another 1% of the newshole. <\/p>\n\n

The troubles besetting the European economy, highlighted by the Merkel-Sarkozy summit, were the fourth largest story, at 3%. That was followed by attention to the administration\u2019s decision to ease off on deportations of illegal immigrants not deemed to pose a public safety threat, also at 3%. <\/p>\n\n

Newsmakers of the Week<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

For the week of August 15-21, no one came close to generating as much attention as Barack Obama and Rick Perry. The president was easily the top overall newsmaker, appearing as a dominant figure in 15% of all the stories studied by PEJ last week. That represents his highest level of coverage since the week of May 2-8, when the killing of Osama bin Laden dominated media attention. <\/p>\n\n

The Texas Governor was next, appearing as a dominant figure in 6% of the week\u2019s stories. <\/p>\n\n

Two beleaguered Mideast leaders followed at 1%. One was Bashar al-Assad, whose military crackdown\u00a0 has thus far been unsuccessful in quelling protests in Syria. The other is Muammar Gaddafi, whose days in power now seem numbered. <\/p>\n\n

The next two newsmakers, both at 1%, both arrested for allegedly perpetrating bizarre and potentially dangerous bomb plots. One was Jared Cano, the 17-year-old Florida youth accused of planning to launch an attack on a Tampa High School. The other was Paul Peters, an Australian man accused of planting a fake collar bomb around the neck of a teenage girl as part of an extortion plot.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n

About the NCI <\/strong> <\/p>\n\n

PEJ\u2019s weekly News Coverage Index examines the news agenda of 52 different outlets from five sectors of the media: print, online, network TV, cable and radio. (See List of Outlets<\/a>.) The weekly study, which includes some 900 stories, is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics the media are covering, the trajectories of that media narrative and differences among news platforms. The percentages are based on “newshole,” or the space devoted to each subject in print and online and time on radio and TV. (See Our Methodology<\/a>.) In addition, these reports also include a rundown of the week\u2019s leading newsmakers, a designation given to people who account for at least 50% of a given story. <\/p>\n\n

Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The economy remained the No. 1 story for the ninth consecutive week while the 2012 presidential race continued its recent spike in coverage last week. And dramatic developments regarding Syria and Libya drove Mideast coverage to its highest level in nearly three months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sub_headline":"PEJ News Coverage Index August 15-21, 2011","sub_title":"PEJ News Coverage Index August 15-21, 2011","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_api_pending":"","apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_hidden":false,"relatedPosts":[],"reportMaterials":[],"multiSectionReport":[],"package_parts__enabled":false,"package_parts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[340],"tags":[],"bylines":[],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"level_of_effort":[],"primary_audience":[],"information_type":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[458],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[],"research-teams":[527],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-89655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-presidents-press","formats-report","research-teams-journalism"],"label":false,"post_parent":0,"word_count":1727,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2011\/08\/21\/pej-news-coverage-index-august-1521-2011\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"report_materials":"","report_pagination":{"current_post":null,"next_post":null,"previous_post":null,"pagination_items":[]},"parent_info":{"parent_title":"Barack Obama and Rick Perry Drive the Week\u2019s News","parent_id":89655},"materialsOrdered":[],"chaptersOrdered":[],"partsOrdered":[],"partsEnabled":false,"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Barack Obama and Rick Perry Drive the Week\u2019s News","description":"The economy remained the No. 1 story for the ninth consecutive week while the 2012 presidential race continued its recent spike in coverage last week. And dramatic developments regarding Syria and Libya drove Mideast coverage to its highest level in nearly three months.","og_title":"Barack Obama and Rick Perry Drive the Week\u2019s News","og_description":"The economy remained the No. 1 story for the ninth consecutive week while the 2012 presidential race continued its recent spike in coverage last week. And dramatic developments regarding Syria and Libya drove Mideast coverage to its highest level in nearly three months.","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":[],"custom_schema":[],"og_image":0,"indexnow_submitted_at":null,"gsc_index_status":null},"prepublish_checks":{"prc-image-alt-text":{"status":"incomplete","message":"3 images are missing alt text.","data":{"count":3}},"prc-about-this-research":{"status":"incomplete","message":"Add an \"About this research\" details block.","data":null},"prc-paragraph-count":{"status":"complete","message":"Found 40 paragraphs.","data":{"count":40}},"prc-internal-link":{"status":"complete","message":"Found 2 internal links.","data":{"count":2}}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130073,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89655\/revisions\/130073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89655"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=89655"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=89655"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=89655"},{"taxonomy":"level_of_effort","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/level_of_effort?post=89655"},{"taxonomy":"primary_audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/primary_audience?post=89655"},{"taxonomy":"information_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/information_type?post=89655"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=89655"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=89655"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=89655"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=89655"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=89655"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=89655"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=89655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}