{"id":90804,"date":"2007-01-22T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2007-01-22T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2007\/01\/22\/pej-news-coverage-index-jan-14-19-2007\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:12:34","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:12:34","slug":"pej-news-coverage-index-jan-14-19-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2007\/01\/22\/pej-news-coverage-index-jan-14-19-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Nature, Crime, and Politics Challenge Iraq in the News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The tale of two kidnapped teenagers, nature\u2019s assault on California\u2019s citrus crop, and another dose of \u201cObama-mania\u201d competed with the Iraq crisis for the media\u2019s attention last week, according to the PEJ News Coverage Index. <\/p>\n\n

In the week of January 14-19, when President Bush hit the interview circuit to sell the \u201csurge\u201d plan and the UN reported more than 34,000 Iraqi civilian deaths in the year past, the war was again the leading topic in the news. When combined, the policy debate (the top story at 14%) and violence in Iraq (the fourth-biggest story at 6%) filled one-fifth of the total newshole.<\/p>\n\n

That, however, represented a 50% drop-off from the previous week when Iraq news virtually obscured every other event. (The drop-off would have been even greater were it not for television.) <\/p>\n\n

Several breaking and unfolding stories helped fill that void. They were led by the rescued Missouri boys (second on the main Index at 8%), a saga the press explored both for the ostensibly happy ending and the unanswered and sordid questions.<\/p>\n\n

Vicious storms that wreaked havoc with California\u2019s economy and killed scores in the heartland were the third-most heavily covered story (at 6%). And political rock star Barack Obama\u2019s establishment of an exploratory committee was enough to make the 2008 Presidential race the fifth biggest story at 5%. <\/span>(The weekend announcements by Sam Brownback, Bill Richardson, and most notably, Hillary Clinton, should keep that category sizzling this week.)<\/p>\n\n

A look inside PEJ\u2019s Index for the week also reveals how the priorities of individual hosts can affect the news agenda. CNN\u2019s Anderson Cooper devoted extensive attention to the kidnapped boys\u2019 story, helping transform it into an even bigger event on cable. His colleague Paula Zahn\u2019s interest in the racially loaded Duke rape case launched that subject onto cable\u2019s top five story list. And on a week in which it snowed in Malibu, Rush Limbaugh\u2019s skepticism about global warming made that subject a top-five radio story.<\/p>\n\n

PEJ\u2019s News Coverage Index, released every Tuesday, is an ongoing study of the news agenda of a wide swath of the American press, measuring the topics covered in 48 different outlets from five sectors of the American media. (See a List of Outlets.)<\/span><\/a> The Index is an attempt to provide an empirical look<\/span> at what the media are and aren’t covering, the trajectories of major stories and differences among news platforms. (See Our Methodology.<\/a>) We believe it is the largest continuing study of the media agenda ever attempted. (See About the News Coverage Index.)<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n

The coverage patterns for the top two stories in the main Index also highlight the different priorities emerging among media platforms. Though the Iraq policy debate accounted for less than 10% of the coverage in the online, radio and newspaper sectors, for instance, it consumed far more on television (18% of cable news and 25% of network evening and morning news coverage). The level of coverage got a boost on January 16, when Bush defended his strategy in an interview with PBS anchor Jim Lehrer\u2014which was picked up elsewhere and created even more focus on the war on PBS.<\/p>\n\n

It was cable, in turn, that seized on the Missouri teens\u2019 tale. The medium devoted 15% of its air time to that subject in our index, compared with 3% in newspapers and 1% on radio. That suggests that there is something to the impression that cable has elevated the media\u2019s fascination with emotionally charged, true-crime cases, such as the Laci Peterson murder and the Natalee Holloway disappearance. One feature of this is a parade of analysts, observers and so-called experts, some of whom may have at best tangential knowledge of the story.<\/p>\n\n

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

Every sector except online treated the 2008 presidential campaign as a top-five story, thanks to the buzz surrounding Obama. Not all the coverage has been positive. Fox News Channel, for instance, picked up and ran wiith the story that Hillary Clinton had leaked word that Obama was educated at a radical Islamic madrassah as a child in Indonesia. Both camps denied the story as false and irresponsible.<\/p>\n\n

What is undeniable is how the Illinois senator and New York senator have been inextricably linked in the coverage\u2014even before Hillary\u2019s announcement. On the Jan. 16 ABC newscast, correspondent George Stephanopoulos cited the three \u201cbig\u201d advantages Obama had over Clinton: \u201cHe is the face of change.\u201d He is \u201cthe only candidate who was against the war from the start.\u201d And \u201che is going to cut into her support among African-American voters.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

If this kind of horserace coverage seems grossly premature, be warned there are presidential debates scheduled in New Hampshire on April 4 and 5. Yes, in 2007.<\/p>\n\n

The bottom half of last week\u2019s top 10 story list also included the conclusion of the Democrats\u2019 100-hour agenda in Congress (4%), the events surrounding the Martin Luther King holiday (2%), and the botched hanging of Saddam Hussein\u2019s half-brother (2%).<\/p>\n\n

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

\u201cThe American people do know the difference between fact and fiction,\u201d retorted Democratic strategist Michael Feldman, arguing that the program isn\u2019t paying dividends for the administration.<\/p>\n\n

Finally, there was a fight for the last spot on the main top story list between two Washington journalism stories. As the week moved on, the confoundingly convoluted Scooter Libby trial\u2014expected to include testimony from such celebrity Beltway journalists as Tim Russert and Bob Woodward\u2014dropped off the list. It was supplanted by tributes to the man who spent a career skewering the Washington culture\u2014humorist Art Buchwald, who died on January 17.<\/p>\n\n

An ABC obit of Buchwald showed a clip of him paying tribute to the president who was a columnist\u2019s best friend, all the while turning 60\u2019s political history on its head. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all grateful to Nixon,\u201d Buchwald said. \u201cHe was our Camelot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Even posthumously, journalists still have Nixon to kick around.<\/p>\n\n

Mark Jurkowitz<\/em> of PEJ<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The continuing debate over the president’s strategy for Iraq kept that subject atop PEJ’s News Coverage Index for the week of January 14-19. But the tale of kidnapped Missouri boys, a nasty blast of winter, and the Barack Obama bandwagon also generated major coverage in a busy and varied news week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sub_headline":"PEJ News Coverage Index Jan. 14 - 19, 2007","sub_title":"PEJ News Coverage Index Jan. 14 - 19, 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,"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-90804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","formats-report","research-teams-journalism"],"label":false,"post_parent":0,"word_count":968,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2007\/01\/22\/pej-news-coverage-index-jan-14-19-2007\/","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":"Nature, Crime, and Politics Challenge Iraq in the News","parent_id":90804},"materialsOrdered":[],"chaptersOrdered":[],"partsOrdered":[],"partsEnabled":false,"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Nature, Crime, and Politics Challenge Iraq in the News","description":"The continuing debate over the president’s strategy for Iraq kept that subject atop PEJ’s News Coverage Index for the week of January 14-19. 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