{"id":90785,"date":"2007-05-17T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2007-05-17T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2007\/05\/17\/pej-talk-show-index-may-6-11-2007\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:12:33","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:12:33","slug":"pej-talk-show-index-may-6-11-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2007\/05\/17\/pej-talk-show-index-may-6-11-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Is There a Litmus Test for Talk Topics?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n\n

Sometimes in the talk show universe news is in the eye of the beholder. Or, more accurately, in the eye of whoever holds the microphone. <\/p>\n\n

Last week, for instance, the foiled plot to attack Fort Dix was the third-most popular topic in the talk universe, filling 8% of the cable and radio talk airtime, according to PEJ\u2019s Talk Show Index from May 6-May 11. But while conservative hosts such as cable\u2019s Tucker Carlson and Bill O\u2019Reilly and radio\u2019s Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage were eager to talk about the alleged terrorist plans to wreak havoc, according to the PEJ sample, no one listening to a liberal media host such as Keith Olbermann or Randi Rhodes would have heard much about it. <\/p>\n\n

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

Meanwhile, the liberal hosts last week wanted to keep talking about the growing scandal at the Justice Department over the handling of the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys, enough to make it last week\u2019s fifth most popular talk topic (at 4%). <\/p>\n\n

The story was punctuated by beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales\u2019s May 10 appearance before Congress. <\/p>\n\n

Against the backdrop of a photo of Gonzales with the caption \u201cGonzo-gate,\u201d Olbermann on his May 7 show declared that \u201cnow Congress is looking at allegations that virtually every level of employment at Justice was subject to a political litmus test. This went right down to the interns.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

None of the conservative talkers in the PEJ Index chose to tackle the Justice Department probe last week. <\/p>\n\n

It is not a luxury that is expected of the mainstream media. But the ability to ignore a major event\u2014like a terror plot or a Justice Department scandal\u2014that does not comport with the host\u2019s worldview seems to come with the territory in the talk world. <\/p>\n\n

The role of subjectivity in selecting subjects worthy of discussion was perhaps even more evident in last week\u2019s most popular talk topic. The debate over Iraq policy filled 21% of the talk airtime. But last week it was almost exclusively a cable topic. On cable TV talk, the subject got twice as much time as any other subject (about 136 minutes). <\/p>\n\n

Yet Iraq barely made a blip in radio talk. Eight other subjects got more talk radio play than the Iraq strategy debate, which logged only about 9 minutes of airtime. <\/p>\n\n

The 2008 presidential race (14% of the talk time) was the second biggest talk subject last week, followed by the Fort Dix plot (8%), the tornadoes that destroyed the Kansas town of Greensburg (5%), and the U.S. Attorneys flap (4%). The lower half of the top-10 list included the French elections (4%), the immigration debate (3%), the fallout over Don Imus\u2019s firing (3%), U.S. efforts to fight terrorism (3%), and those rising gas prices (3%). <\/p>\n\n

(And neither Queen Elizabeth\u2019s visit to the former colonies and British Prime Minister Tony Blair\u2019s resignation made the top-10 list in talk last week, though both were major stories in the media generally. Apparently, Anglophiles are fairly rare in the talk business.) <\/p>\n\n

The Talk Show Index, released each Friday, 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

Much of the impetus behind the Iraq policy discussion last week was the news that 11 Republican lawmakers had met with President Bush to bluntly explain their concerns about the course of the war. In many media quarters, that was treated as a major development in the domestic political struggle over war strategy. <\/p>\n\n

The May 10 edition of CNN\u2019s \u201cLou Dobbs Tonight\u201d contained a report declaring that the \u201cpolitical pressure over Iraq has been mounting on this White House for some time. The difference now \u2013 it\u2019s not coming from Democrats, but now openly, from some Republicans.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

Conservative Joe Scarborough, who has been critical of the President, opened his May 9 MSNBC show by referencing NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert\u2019s report on \u201ca tense private White House meeting with Republican lawmakers. Their message to Mr. Bush: \u2018You have no credibility left on the war.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n

But that White House meeting with GOP lawmakers was not a part of any Fox News Channel talk shows examined by PEJ last week. And on his May 11 show, Bill O\u2019Reilly scolded the rest of the media for negativity on the war. <\/p>\n\n

After reading a memo from a retired general that, at least in part, expressed the view that some things in Iraq are improving, O\u2019Reilly said: \u201cI doubt you\u2019ll see the general\u2019s memo in the New York Times or any other left-wing media\u2026the anti-war crew is now fully invested in defeat.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

One other story that appeared to reveal an ideological divide among talkers was the results of the French elections, in which conservative Nicholas Sarkozy defeated a more liberal female candidate, Segolene Royal. Here again it was conservatives\u2014heartened by the Sarkozy victory\u2014who tackled the topic while liberals stayed silent. <\/p>\n\n

They were heartened that a conservative won. But the French election also prompted some conservatives to suggest the results were a bad omen for one of their favorite targets, Hillary Clinton. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cThis election in France – not good news for Mrs. Clinton,\u201d said Rush Limbaugh. \u201cThey\u2019ve done a preliminary analysis of the votes over there \u2013 48% of French women voted against the female candidate!\u201d <\/p>\n\n

One other subject that continues to hang around on talk\u2019s top-10 story list is the controversy over the April 12 firing of Don Imus for crude remarks about the Rutgers women\u2019s basketball team. Last week, almost all the talk show coverage came in the form of a May 11 special edition of the Fox News Channel\u2019s \u201cHannity & Colmes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

In an edition labeled the \u201cGreat Debate,\u201d the co-hosts got the two major antagonists to appear together\u2014Imus\u2019s former producer Bernard McGuirk and Al Sharpton, one of the key advocates for Imus\u2019s firing. Like two prizefighters entering the ring, first Sharpton and then McGuirk walked theatrically from the wings into the studio and sat down. <\/p>\n\n

The two men looked so uncomfortable in each other\u2019s presence that McGuirk\u2019s opening quip seemed to sum up the atmosphere: \u201cLet\u2019s get ready to box on Fox.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

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

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

1. Iraq Policy Debate – 21% <\/address>\n\n
2. 2008 Campaign – 14%
<\/address>\n\n
3. NJ Terror Plot – 8%<\/address>\n\n
4. Kansas Tornadoes – 5% <\/address>\n\n
5. Fired US Attorneys – 4%<\/address>\n\n
6. French Elections – 4%
<\/address>\n\n
7. Immigration – 3%
<\/address>\n\n
8. Don Imus – 3%<\/address>\n\n
9. US Domestic Terrorism – 3%<\/address>\n\n
10. Gas\/Oil Prices – 3% <\/address>\n\n\n <\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n

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

1. Iraq Policy Debate – 14% <\/address>\n\n
2. NJ Terror Plot – 6%<\/address>\n\n
3. Kansas Tornadoes – 6%
<\/address>\n\n
4. 2008 Campaign – 6%<\/address>\n\n
5. Events in Iraq – 3%<\/address>\n\n
6. Tony Blair Resigns – 3%<\/address>\n\n
7. French Elections – 3%<\/address>\n\n
8. California Fires – 3%<\/address>\n\n
9. Queen Elizabeth Visits the US – 2%<\/address>\n\n
10. Fired US Attorneys – 2%<\/address>\n\n

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

The Fort Dix terror plot, the Attorney General’s Congressional appearance, French presidential elections, and the Iraq debate all seized top space in the universe of talk media last week. But what you heard, or whether you heard anything at all, depended on who was doing the talking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sub_headline":"PEJ Talk Show Index May 6 - 11, 2007","sub_title":"PEJ Talk Show Index May 6 - 11, 2007","_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":[],"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-90785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","formats-report","research-teams-journalism"],"label":false,"post_parent":0,"word_count":1161,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2007\/05\/17\/pej-talk-show-index-may-6-11-2007\/","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":"Is There a Litmus Test for Talk Topics?","parent_id":90785},"materialsOrdered":[],"chaptersOrdered":[],"partsOrdered":[],"partsEnabled":false,"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Is There a Litmus Test for Talk Topics?","description":"The Fort Dix terror plot, the Attorney General’s Congressional appearance, French presidential elections, and the Iraq debate all seized top space in the universe of talk media last week. But what you heard, or whether you heard anything at all, depended on who was doing the talking.
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