{"id":90672,"date":"2007-08-02T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2007-08-02T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2007\/08\/02\/pej-talk-show-index-july-22-27-2007\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:12:33","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:12:33","slug":"pej-talk-show-index-july-22-27-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2007\/08\/02\/pej-talk-show-index-july-22-27-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Hosts Debate the Debate as the Campaign Dominates"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n\n

Much of the media narrative that emerged from the July 23 CNN\/YouTube debate was about the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama disagreement over whether a President should meet with hostile foreign leaders. And when that argument continued throughout the week, some analysts viewed it as one of the early defining moments of the Democratic presidential battle. <\/p>\n\n

But in the world of talk last week, both in cable and radio, it was the CNN\/YouTube debate itself\u2014with its unusual format of citizen-produced video questions\u2014that became a big part of the story. The reviews were mixed. <\/p>\n\n

On his July 24 program, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh thought \u201ca lot of these questioners were idiots.\u201d He especially didn\u2019t like the citizen who asked each candidate to say something they liked and disliked about the person next to them. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cThis is silly,\u201d Limbaugh observed. \u201cThis is right out of the Miss American pageant.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

[CNN moderator]<\/p>\n\n\n

The July 23 edition of the Fox News Channel\u2019s \u201cHannity & Colmes\u201d program featured a focus group assembled by controversial pollster Frank Luntz reacting to the debate. By a substantial margin, they thought Obama had outperformed Clinton, using words like \u201ccharismatic\u201d and \u201csincere\u201d to describe the Illinois Senator. But the verdict seemed even more unified when Luntz asked how many people liked the debate. Virtually every hand shot up. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cThey want real people talking on the real issues,\u201d Luntz concluded. <\/p>\n\n

With that \u201creal people\u201d debate accounting for almost 50% of the segments, the presidential campaign was the leading cable and radio talk subject last week, filling 18% of the airtime according to PEJ\u2019s Talk Show Index for July 22-27. <\/p>\n\n

The next biggest story in the Talk universe last week was the growing confrontation between Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and those in the Democratic-led Congress who believe he has been playing fast and loose with the truth, which made up 9% of the talk time. (The presidential campaign and the Gonzales crisis also finished #1 and #2 last week in the general news Index.) <\/p>\n\n

A brutal crime that attracted major news coverage last week was also among the top stories on the talk shows. The home invasion that took three lives in quiet Cheshire Connecticut was the third-biggest talk topic (at 6%). That was followed by the issue of borders and immigration (fourth-biggest at 6%) that festers in the aftermath of the recent defeat of the immigration bill. The top-five story roster was rounded out by concerns about domestic terrorism (5%), driven in part by a Transportation Security Administration report about possible \u201cdry runs\u201d for attacks that entailed bringing suspicious objects into airports. <\/p>\n\n

The talk culture was also more fixated than the news media generally on two stories that generated considerable buzz in the sports and celebrity worlds. The fallout from Atlanta Falcon quarterback Michael Vick\u2019s dogfighting arrest was the eighth-biggest story at 3%. And the drug and alcohol bust of one of Hollywood\u2019s girls gone wild, 21-year-old Lindsay Lohan, was ninth at 3%. <\/p>\n\n

PEJ\u2019s Talk Show Index, released each week, 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.)<\/a> PEJ\u2019s Talk Show Index includes seven prime time cable shows and five radio talk hosts and is a subset of our News Coverage Index<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

The horrific slaying of a Connecticut mother and her two daughters is the kind of event that triggers coverage not only because of the nature of the crime, but because it reinforces the basic fear that no one is really safe from crime. And while the news coverage was gruesome enough, the emotions associated with a case like this had even freer rein in the talk realm. <\/p>\n\n

Two of those hosts, MSNBC\u2019s Dan Abrams and talk radio\u2019s Michael Savage, did most of the talking. <\/p>\n\n

[Connecticut has]<\/p>\n\n\n

Calling the crime, \u201cthe worst nightmare imaginable to any normal human being,\u201d the conservative Savage directed his anger against the media. He basically accused journalists of downplaying this case because the victims were affluent and white. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cAre they saying it\u2019s offensive to poor people to cover a slaughter like this that occurs to rich people,\u201d he continued. \u201cInstead, we\u2019re hearing about the drug-addicted slut Lindsay Low Brow. Instead, we see the story of the crimes of dumb football player who throws a dog into a pit bull ring.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

The latest Lohan misadventure also was dissected on Abrams\u2019 July 24 show when the host relied on another celebrity \u201cfamiliar with Hollywood, drugs and rehab\u201d\u2014former \u201cPartridge Family\u201d child star Danny Bonaduce\u2014for expert commentary and context. Asked if he was surprised that Lohan had been busted so soon after a rehab stint, Bonaduce responded with a kind of celebrity worldly weariness. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cNot surprised at all,\u201d he said. \u201cI spent 30 days in the exact same rehab\u2026The success rate of rehab is four to eight percent.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

The Michael Vick saga, about the Atlanta Falcons quarterback indicted for dogfighting, also became fodder for detours into other matters. On the July 27 edition of The Fox News Channel\u2019s \u201cO\u2019Reilly Factor,\u201d guest host Michelle Malkin turned the case into a referendum on PETA, the animal rights group that has been a vocal critic of the quarterback. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cAnimal rights groups are pressuring Nike and other major companies to drop the NFL star,\u201d explained Malkin as she interviewed PETA official Daphna Nachminovitch. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cWhat happens if Michael Vick is exonerated of these charges?\u201d <\/p>\n\n

Yet of all the talk hosts examined in PEJ\u2019s Index last week, only one of them brought up the fantastic tale of Oscar, the Rhode Island nursing home cat with extraordinary powers. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cSeen the story about that cat?\u201d asked Rush Limbaugh on his July 26 show. \u201cBeautiful cat. People in a nursing home have figured out this cat knows when residents of the nursing home are going to pass away. It gets up on their beds and cuddles up.\u201d Right before launching into a discussion of the Democrats versus Alberto Gonzales, Limbaugh made the salient point about Oscar. <\/p>\n\n

You probably don\u2019t want him hanging around you. <\/p>\n\n

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

Top Ten Stories in the Talk Show Index<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

1. 2008 Campaign – 18% <\/address>\n\n
2. Alberto Gonzales Controversies – 9%
<\/address>\n\n
3. Connecticut Murders – 6%<\/address>\n\n
4. Immigration – 6% <\/address>\n\n
5. US Domestic Terror Threat – 5%<\/address>\n\n
6. Iraq Policy Debate – 5%
<\/address>\n\n
7. Health Care – 4% <\/address>\n\n
8. Michael Vick Indicted – 3%<\/address>\n\n
9. Lindsay Lohan – 3%<\/address>\n\n
10. Fired Attorneys – 2% <\/address>\n\n\n <\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n

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

1. 2008 Campaign – 12% <\/address>\n\n
2. Alberto Gonzales Controversies – 6%<\/address>\n\n
3. US Domestic Terror Threat – 4%
<\/address>\n\n
4. Iraq Policy Debate – 4%<\/address>\n\n
5. Iraq Homefront – 3%<\/address>\n\n
6. Events in Iraq – 3%<\/address>\n\n
7. Connecticut Murders – 2%<\/address>\n\n
8. Stocks Fall – 2%<\/address>\n\n
9. Afghanistan – 2%<\/address>\n\n
10. Immigration – 2%<\/address>\n\n

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

Format moved to the forefront of the Talk Show universe last week. The unusual CNN\/YouTube Democratic debate inspired a good deal of talk show commentary. 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