{"id":90781,"date":"2007-01-25T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2007-01-25T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2007\/01\/25\/newspapers-see-a-president-seeking-a-last-chance\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:16:30","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:16:30","slug":"newspapers-see-a-president-seeking-a-last-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2007\/01\/25\/newspapers-see-a-president-seeking-a-last-chance\/","title":{"rendered":"Newspapers See a President Seeking a Last Chance"},"content":{"rendered":"

When President George Bush took the podium on January 23 for his State of the Union address, he was widely viewed as a political leader saddled with dangerously low approval ratings trying to prosecute an unpopular war.<\/p>\n\n

While everyone knew his speech would include a defense of the Iraq \u201csurge\u201d strategy, and several new domestic policy initiatives, the big questions were about what tone the president would strike and how his remarks would be received by Congress and the public.<\/p>\n\n

The first draft of an answer has arrived in the form of the front pages and headlines from nearly 300 U.S. daily newspapers. How did the media portray the speech?<\/p>\n\n

The subject that eclipsed all others in the coverage is the Iraq war, and the focus of most of the headlines was the president asking, even pleading, with the nation to suspend its skepticism and support his plan. <\/span><\/p>\n\n

A smaller but significant percentage of the headlines next stressed Bush\u2019s resolve (opponents might say stubbornness) in pursuing his Iraq policy. But Bush\u2019s domestic policy initiatives, including his plan to change health care and approach to global warming, got relatively little share of the headlines.<\/p>\n\n

The front pages studied by PEJ\u2014posted on the Newseum web site<\/a>\u2014reveal that Iraq was the primary subject in 218 of the 284 papers examined. And 105 of those headlines about Iraq stressed the idea that president was seeking one last chance to get it right in Baghdad.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cBush implores Congress to give Iraq plan a chance,\u201d declared the Monterey County Herald in California.\u201c\u2019I ask you to give it a chance to work,\u2019\u201d echoed the Knoxville News-Sentinel in Tennessee.<\/p>\n\n

The Post-Crescent of Appleton, Wisconsin was even more succinct with \u201cBush: \u2018Give it a chance.\u2019\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n

Another 65 headlines created the fundamental impression of Bush defying his critics and aggressively sticking to his guns, both literally and figuratively.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cBush won\u2019t retreat on Iraq policy\u201d declared the Citizens\u2019\u2019 Voice of Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania.The Miami Herald put is similarly with its headline, \u201cBush unyielding on Iraq War plan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

The idea of Bush as a beleaguered leader facing a hostile audience was the primary theme in 48 other headlines.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cBush faces long odds,\u201d was the assessment of The Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City. The message was the same on page 1 of the Burlington (Vermont) Free Press: \u201cBush\u2019s Tough Sell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Even though the president did devote a significant chunk of the speech to his agenda athome, only 51 of the 284 headlines led with the domestic policy theme. And unlike Iraq, many of those focused on the idea of compromise between the White House and the new Democratic Congressional leadership.<\/p>\n\n

Typical of that genre were: \u201cBush\u2019s new agenda reaches across aisle\u201d in the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times and \u201cA new call for common ground\u201d in the Charlotte Observer.<\/p>\n\n

A little more than a dozen headlines fell into a miscellaneous category, with some of them offering a vague description of the speech that provided little sense of the event. The Cleveland Plain Dealer ended up in the miscellany basket for a headline raising the most cryptic question of the day\u2014\u201cCan he get what he wants?\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How did the press cover the President’s State of the Union address? Did it emphasize his domestic policy agenda or did Iraq policy grab the headlines? Did the media focus on his appeal for another chance on Iraq or his defiance on that subject? A PEJ review of front-page headlines on the day after finds the answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","relatedPosts":[],"reportMaterials":[],"multiSectionReport":[],"package_parts__enabled":false,"package_parts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[74,337,349,340],"tags":[],"bylines":[2199],"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-90781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-george-w-bush","category-news-content-analysis","category-newspapers","category-presidents-press","bylines-pew-research-center-journalism-media-staff","formats-report","research-teams-journalism"],"label":false,"post_parent":0,"word_count":523,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2007\/01\/25\/newspapers-see-a-president-seeking-a-last-chance\/","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":"Newspapers See a President Seeking a Last Chance","parent_id":90781},"materialsOrdered":[],"chaptersOrdered":[],"partsOrdered":[],"partsEnabled":false,"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Newspapers See a President Seeking a Last Chance","description":"

How did the press cover the President’s State of the Union address? Did it emphasize his domestic policy agenda or did Iraq policy grab the headlines? Did the media focus on his appeal for another chance on Iraq or his defiance on that subject? A PEJ review of front-page headlines on the day after finds the answers.<\/p>","og_title":"Newspapers See a President Seeking a Last Chance","og_description":"

How did the press cover the President’s State of the Union address? Did it emphasize his domestic policy agenda or did Iraq policy grab the headlines? Did the media focus on his appeal for another chance on Iraq or his defiance on that subject? A PEJ review of front-page headlines on the day after finds the answers.<\/p>","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":"complete","message":"No image blocks in content.","data":null},"prc-about-this-research":{"status":"incomplete","message":"Add an \"About this research\" details block.","data":null},"prc-paragraph-count":{"status":"complete","message":"Found 15 paragraphs.","data":{"count":15}},"prc-internal-link":{"status":"incomplete","message":"Add at least one internal link.","data":{"count":0}}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[{"key":"e23cb296-737e-43a7-b28b-f6225994cd56","termId":2199}],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90781","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\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135676,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90781\/revisions\/135676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90781"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=90781"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=90781"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=90781"},{"taxonomy":"level_of_effort","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/level_of_effort?post=90781"},{"taxonomy":"primary_audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/primary_audience?post=90781"},{"taxonomy":"information_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/information_type?post=90781"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=90781"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=90781"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=90781"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=90781"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=90781"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=90781"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=90781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}