{"id":90560,"date":"2007-11-05T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2007-11-05T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2007\/11\/05\/pej-news-coverage-index-oct-28-nov-2-2007\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:12:30","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:12:30","slug":"pej-news-coverage-index-oct-28-nov-2-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2007\/11\/05\/pej-news-coverage-index-oct-28-nov-2-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama, Huckabee, and a Feisty Philly Face Off"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The big news event in the presidential campaign last week was the Democrats\u2019 debate Oct. 30 in Philadelphia, an encounter in which frontrunner Hillary Clinton faced into her toughest bombardment yet from party rivals. <\/p>\n\n

Calling it \u201cstrikingly different in tone\u201d from the previous ones, The New York Times reported that Clinton came under \u201cwithering attack\u201d on everything from her \u201ccandor\u201d to \u201celectability.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

Two days after the debate, NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d show showed footage of Clinton brandishing the red boxing gloves she received at the AFSCME union endorsement while correspondent Andrea Mitchell worked over the pugilistic metaphors. \u201cAfter getting punched around in Tuesday\u2019s Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton is still acting tough.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

Less noticed, however, the news media last week were also busy sharpening some other \u201cmaster narratives\u201d about several candidates. These master narratives are broader and thematic \u201cstorylines\u201d about different contenders that often reflect and reinforce public perceptions and can powerfully shape press coverage. In a sense, the battle for exposure in a campaign is often a battle to see which master narrative the press leans toward about your candidate. Is Hillary Clinton hard and calculating, or is she tough and sophisticated? Is Rudy Giuliani too liberal for the GOP, or redefining it? <\/p>\n\n

Last week, two of these narratives\u2014one involving Illinois Democratic Senator Barack Obama and another concerning former Arkansas Republican Governor Mike Huckabee\u2014showed signs of becoming significantly more fleshed out in the coverage of the campaign. <\/p>\n\n

With Obama, the issue\u2014boiled down to basics\u2014is whether he is too mellow and mild mannered for the rugged nature of presidential politics. An Oct. 29 Los Angeles Times story that puzzled over why the charismatic Senator was not faring better quoted a political consultant chalking it up his \u201cgentle style.\u201d An anecdote in the story noted that Obama generated only mixed results in face-to-face meetings with Iowa voters, partly because of his \u201cmild\u2026rhetoric.\u201d Other stories last week went even further, questioning his toughness. <\/p>\n\n

In the case of Huckabee, there were signs of a new master narrative as well\u2014that in the absence of an heir to Ronald Reagan, his conservative values and affable manner are turning him into a more viable contender. An Oct 29 National Public Radio report\u2014noting that Huckabee had enjoyed a big jump in online fundraising and a bump in some Iowa polls\u2014interviewed a voter who originally passed over Huckabee because of doubts about his electability, but then decided \u201cwhat really matters is the person.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

The story also showcased Huckabee\u2019s skills as a bass guitar player. In front of a crowd of Iowa GOP revelers, his band played a song appropriate for a political campaign, the 1960 pop hit\u2014later covered by the Beatles\u2014titled \u201cMoney (That\u2019s What I Want).\u201d <\/p>\n\n

The Philadelphia debate, along with the emerging Obama and Huckabee story lines, helped make the presidential campaign the dominant story last week, filling 17% of the newshole as measured by PEJ\u2019s News Coverage Index for Oct. 28-Nov. 2. It was the top story in the newspaper sector (11%) and network TV (13%) and racked up even bigger number in the two sectors\u2014cable TV (27%) and radio (28%)\u2014where the talk hosts regularly hold forth on the election. Thanks in part to the Philadelphia face off, the week was a big one for Democrats, with their candidates generating about five times as many stories as the Republican hopefuls. <\/p>\n\n

After the campaign, the second-biggest story last week was the situation inside Iraq, at 6%, followed by the western wildfires at 4%, tropical storm Noel at 4%, and the U.S. economy at 4%. During the week of Oct. 21-26, the raging California wildfires utterly dominated the news, accounting for 38% of the coverage. With the blazes coming under control last week, coverage of the story fell by 34 percentage points. <\/p>\n\n

PEJ\u2019s News Coverage Index examines the news agenda of 48 different outlets from five sectors of the media. (See List of Outlets.)<\/a> It is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics the media are covering, the trajectories of major stories and differences among news platforms. (See Our Methodology.)<\/a> <\/p>\n\n

In the early phase of the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama was the recipient of largely flattering coverage in the mainstream media. (A new PEJ study on election coverage<\/a> from January through May 2007 found that he generated more positive coverage than any other announced major candidate, with upbeat stories outnumbering the negative ones by about three to one.) His early fundraising prowess and clear emergence as the leading challenger to Clinton in the polls seemed to fuel the good press. <\/p>\n\n

But as the campaign has dragged on, Clinton\u2019s ability to stretch her lead in the polls and Obama\u2019s failure to translate his obvious talents into more strategic success has started raising questions in the media about the T-word\u2014toughness. <\/p>\n\n

One night before the Philadelphia debate, MSNBC host Tucker Carlson opened his show by wondering about that very issue. \u201cBarack Obama swears he\u2019s gonna get tough with Hillary Clinton,\u201d said Carlson. \u201cBut the thing about real tough guys\u2014they don\u2019t talk all that much about being tough. They just do it. Is Obama for real?\u201d <\/p>\n\n

The next night, in an NBC nightly news report previewing the debate, anchor Brian Williams noted Obama\u2019s promise \u201cto be tougher in the campaign against frontrunner Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.\u201d And the subsequent story featured Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Ed Rendell\u2019s blunt warning that Obama \u201cneeds a performance where the media\u2026are saying \u2018he showed some strength, he made some points, he looked liked a leader.\u2019 Right now, the buzz from the debates is\u2026he\u2019s not ready for prime time.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

On the GOP side, Huckabee, the little-known pastor and former Arkansas chief executive, was part of a group of presumed Republican long shots (such as Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul) virtually ignored by the media in the early part of the campaign. But his star began to rise when he finished a fairly strong second to Mitt Romney in the August Iowa straw poll, an event journalists are often quick to dismiss even while it does become a benchmark that influences their coverage. Upward movement in recent Iowa polls and an increased profile have generated attention from a political press re-evaluating its original decision to marginalize him. <\/p>\n\n

Previewing his interview with Huckabee on the Oct. 30 edition of ABC\u2019s \u201cGood Morning America,\u201d George Stephanopoulos asked the question of the moment: \u201cCould he be on the verge of becoming a real contender?\u201d <\/p>\n\n

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

In an odd way, the questioning of Huckabee\u2019s conservative bona fides lends credibility to his campaign since that issue has already repeatedly arisen with the four top Republican contenders\u2014Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson. <\/p>\n\n

In the \u201cGood Morning America\u201d story on his strengthening candidacy, Huckabee himself posited a theory for why he\u2019s suddenly finding his record as governor under much closer scrutiny. With his opponents and critics now realizing that \u201cthis guy\u2019s alive,\u201d they\u2019ve decided \u201clet\u2019s go get him.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

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

Note: This week’s sample did not include the presidential debate that MSNBC aired on Tuesday, October 30, but included an episode of Tucker instead. Also, CNN aired special programs on the evenings of October 31 and November 1. Other CNN shows were substituted for those evenings rather than the normal rotation. <\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h6>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The presidential race was easily the biggest story in the media last week. 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