{"id":90450,"date":"2008-04-10T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2008-04-10T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2008\/04\/10\/pej-talk-show-index-march-31-april-6-2008\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:12:28","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:12:28","slug":"pej-talk-show-index-march-31-april-6-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2008\/04\/10\/pej-talk-show-index-march-31-april-6-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"PEJ Talk Show Index: March 31- April 6, 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even though talk hosts enjoy a great deal <\/p>\n\n

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

of editorial license, several radio talkers found out last week that there still boundaries that can\u2019t be crossed without consequences. <\/p>\n\n

Liberal talker Ed Schultz provoked controversy and a rebuke from Barack Obama, after Schultz called John McCain a \u201cwarmonger\u201d during an April 4 North Dakota fundraiser at which Obama spoke. (Obama\u2019s campaign disavowed those remarks, just as McCain criticized conservative radio host Bill Cunningham in February for using a GOP rally to call Obama a \u201chack\u201d and repeatedly use his middle name, Hussein.) <\/p>\n\n

Another liberal host, Randi Rhodes\u2014no fan of Hillary Clinton\u2014got in even deeper when she used profanity to describe the former First Lady during a stand-up routine in San Francisco in late March. Air America Radio, Rhodes\u2019 employer, suspended her for those remarks last week. Then, on April 10, Air America announced Rhodes\u2019 decision to leave the liberal talk network where she was one of the top names. <\/p>\n\n

While both Schultz and Rhodes ran into trouble for words uttered outside their talk studios, they also sounded off on their day jobs. On her March 31 program, Rhodes attacked Clinton\u2019s recollection\u2014later acknowledged to be inaccurate\u2014about dodging sniper fire during a 1996 flight to Bosnia. Referring to the CBS footage that refuted Clinton\u2019s account, Rhodes called her story a \u201cbig stinkin\u2019 lie\u2026Every single solitary airport landing I have ever had has been more traumatic than what I saw on the video in Tuzla.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

[is]<\/p>\n\n\n

But any suggestion that Clinton depart the race at this point was anathema to radio host Rush Limbaugh. \u201cWhy should she end her campaign?\u201d he asked on March 31. \u201cIt\u2019s America. Let every vote count.\u201d Limbaugh\u2014a staunch conservative and frequent Clinton critic\u2014has his own motives. He has been touting his \u201cOperation Chaos,\u201d which involves urging Republicans to cross over and vote for Clinton as a way of keeping the Democratic primary fight from being resolved and preventing the party from unifying. <\/p>\n\n

Last week, the presidential campaign\u2014with its focus on the Obama-Clinton battle\u2014dominated the talk show airwaves. According to PEJ\u2019s Talk Show Index for the week of March 31-April 6, a full 72% of cable and radio talk airtime examined was devoted to the campaign. (You had to drop all the way down to 3% to find the next biggest topic, immigration.) That\u2019s more than double the media attention given to the campaign (32% of the newshole) in the general News Index last week. <\/p>\n\n

PEJ\u2019s Talk Show Index is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics are most frequently dissected and discussed in the media universe of talk and opinion\u2014a segment of the media that spans across both prime time cable and radio. (See About the Talk Show Index<\/span><\/strong><\/a>.) PEJ\u2019s Talk Show Index includes six prime time cable shows and five radio talk hosts and is a subset of our News Coverage Index<\/span><\/strong><\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

One of the key story lines in last week\u2019s campaign coverage was the question of whether Clinton should end her campaign. And for a number of talk hosts, especially conservatives who are not likely to embrace either Clinton or Obama in the general election, that increasing pressure on Clinton was a way of broaching another favorite subject\u2014bias in the news media. For now at least, that made them something of allies of convenience with a Clinton campaign that has been complaining about unfair press treatment for many months. <\/p>\n\n

[who]<\/p>\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no doubt Barack Obama is the favorite of many media outlets,\u201d O\u2019Reilly added. \u201cBut no journalists should be taking marching orders from any campaign.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

Limbaugh told his listeners that key elements of the \u201cDemocrat Party and the American left\u201d are bringing \u201call kinds of pressure\u2026on Mrs. Clinton.\u201d To illustrate his point, he cited a recent spate of news stories reporting that the Clinton campaign had millions of dollars in unpaid debts to vendors. <\/p>\n\n

[than]<\/p>\n\n\n

\u201cWe in the national media have played along with this pro-Obama nonsense a very, very long time,\u201d Dobbs added. <\/p>\n\n

The message was very different on the April 1 edition of MSBC\u2019s Countdown, with Keith Olbermann, a liberal cable talker who has at times been quite critical of the Clinton campaign. In a comment that cited a key argument of the advocates for a Clinton withdrawal\u2014that she can\u2019t win and is only damaging the party\u2019s November hopes by fighting it out\u2014Olbermann talked about \u201cClinton\u2019s decision to stay in the race despite apparently insurmountable math against her.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

No doubt some of Olbermann\u2019s fellow talkers will see that as another example of the pro-Obama media bias. And we may have to wait until the eventual contest between John McCain and the Democratic nominee before the talk hosts reveal their true ideological colors. <\/p>\n\n

Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n <\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n

Top Ten Stories in the broader News Coverage Index<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n

1. 2008 Campaign – 32% <\/address>\n\n
2. U.S. Economy – 9%
<\/address>\n\n
3. Events in Iraq – 5%<\/address>\n\n
4. Zimbabwe Elections – 3% <\/address>\n\n
5. Martin Luther King Anniversary – 3%<\/address>\n\n
6. Plane Safety – 3%
<\/address>\n\n
7. Bush’s trip to Europe – 2% <\/address>\n\n
8. U.S. Domestic Terrorism and Efforts to Combat – 2%<\/address>\n\n
9. Federal Reserve Regulatory Changes – 2%<\/address>\n\n
10. Iraq Homefront – 2% <\/address>\n\n
<\/address>\n\n

Click here<\/a> to read the methodology behind the Talk Show Index. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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