Home » Numbers» Data Sets

Related PEJ Research

News Coverage Index

The News Coverage Index is an effort to measure and analyze the American news media on a continuing basis. It examines some four dozen news outlets in real time to determine what is being covered and what is not-to give a broad sense of the American news agenda.

Recent News Coverage Releases

Hurricane Sandy and Twitter

Apple Announcements Dominate the Blogosphere

Data Sets

The Project for Excellence in Journalism is pleased to offer scholars access to raw data sets from PEJ research. All uses of this data should reference the Project for Excellence in Journalism as the source of the data and acknowledge that the PEJ bears no responsibility for interpretations presented or conclusions reached based on analysis of the data.


News Coverage Index Data Sets

PEJ plans to make data sets of its News Coverage Index available yearly. Single compressed archive files (.zip file) may be downloaded and saved on your computer. Software for decompressing zip files is available at download.com and on many freeware/shareware sites on the web.

PEJ is interested in learning about other ways that scholars use our data. If you publish something based on our data, please let us know by sending us an email. Individuals will need to fill out a brief registration before downloading data. Questions concerning the data sets may be directed to the Project for Excellence in Journalism.


July 2, 20122011 News Coverage Index Data Set
The 2011 NCI data set totals 48,555 stories: 5,190 newspaper stories, 7,744 online stories, 11,858 stories from network television, 15,324 stories on cable news, and 8,439 stories from radio programs.
July 2, 20122011 Additional Content Studies
PEJ offers topline data for additional content-based reports. The focus of these opportunistic studies ranged from how the media uses Twitter to which candidate fared the best in the first five months of the presidential election.
July 1, 20112010 Additional Content Studies
PEJ offers topline data for additional content-based reports. The focus of these opportunistic studies ranged from how the media covered the health care to when technology stories make news.
July 1, 20112010 News Coverage Index Data Set
The 2010 NCI data set totals 52,614 stories: 5,626 newspaper stories, 7,818 online stories, 13,016 stories from network television, 17,087 stories on cable news, and 9,067 stories from radio programs.
July 1, 20102009 News Coverage Index Data Set
The 2009 NCI data set totals 68,717 stories. The Index sample includes 55 outlets, every Monday through Sunday. These outlets come from the five main sectors of mainstream media—print, network TV, cable TV, online and radio.
July 1, 20102009 Additional Content Studies
PEJ offers topline data for additional content-based reports. The focus of these opportunistic studies ranged from how the media covered the Great Recession to President Obama’s first 100 days in office and more.
July 1, 20092008 News Coverage Index Data Set
The 2008 NCI data set totals 69,942 stories. The Index sample includes 48 outlets (34 or 35 each week-day with some rotation), every Monday through Sunday. These outlets come from the five main sectors of mainstream media—print, network TV, cable TV, online and radio.
July 1, 20092008 Campaign Coverage Index Data Set
The CCI is based on a sub-set of PEJ’s 2008 NCI—all the stories from January 1 through November 3, 2008, that were primarily about the 2008 presidential campaign. The 2008 CCI data set totals 18,836 stories.
July 1, 20092008 Additional Content Studies
PEJ offers topline data for additional content-based reports. The focus of these opportunistic studies ranged from how the media covered the 2008 election to health care in the news and much more.
July 29, 20082007 News Coverage Index Data Set
The 2007 NCI data set totals 70,737 stories. The Index sample includes 48 outlets (35 each week-day with some rotation), every Sunday through Friday. The outlets studied come from the five main sectors of mainstream media-print, network TV, cable, online, and radio.