The
war in Afghanistan—a subject that has generated periodic spikes in media interest
but not a high level of sustained coverage—was back atop the mainstream news
agenda last week. And this time, the catalyst was neither violence on the
ground nor deliberations in Washington, but the leak of about 90,000 classified
war reports by a whistleblower website.
Driven
by WikiLeaks’ dissemination of those documents—which highlighted the difficult
challenges faced by NATO forces—Afghanistan led the news for the week of July
26-August 1, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in
Journalism. Taken together, coverage of
the WikiLeaks saga and the overall war effort combined to fill 19% of the
newshole.
Afghanistan
coverage has generally followed a roller coaster trajectory in the past year.
It jumped to 9% of the newshole in the last quarter of 2009 when President
Obama decided on his surge of 30,000 troops. It then plunged to only 3% in the
first five months of 2010. In late June, coverage spiked again when Obama
removed General Stanley McChrystal as Afghanistan commander after Rolling Stone
published negative comments by him and his staff about the administration.
The
WikiLeaks story triggered a renewed debate over the wisdom of U.S. strategy in
Afghanistan. But it remains to be seen how long that will keep the war
prominent in the headlines.
A
number of other events, though, also competed for space last week. Indeed, four
of the five media sectors examined in PEJ’s News Coverage Index had different
lead stories. The WikiLeaks story
led network news, but the economy topped the newspaper and radio sectors, the
Gulf oil spill was No. 1 online and immigration was first in the cable sector.
The
immigration debate accounted for 13% of last week’s coverage with the big news being
a federal judge’s decision to block major elements of Arizona’s controversial
new immigration law. That marks the
second highest week of immigration coverage since PEJ began tracking it in
January 2007. (The No. 1 week was 16% from April 26-May 2, right after the
Arizona measure was signed into law.)
The
announced departure of much-criticized
Tony Hayward as CEO of BP helped fuel the continuing coverage of the Gulf oil
spill, which filled 12% of the newshole from July 26-August 1—the same level as
the previous week.
And
the economy accounted for 10% of the week’s coverage, with no particular
economic storyline dominating. But it’s fair to say that there was little in
last week’s news to contradict the news narrative that the nation’s financial
health is still in fragile shape.
WikiLeaks and the War
The
WikiLeaks story was the biggest aspect of Afghanistan-related coverage last
week and it generated the most attention in the network news sector, at 20% of
the airtime studied.
The
classified Afghanistan field reports were provided by the three-year old
WikiLeaks group—which specializes in unearthing secret information—to three
outlets, The New York Times, the British newspaper The Guardian and the German
magazine Der Spiegel. Among the key findings was the suggestion, as the Times
reported on July 26, that Pakistan, “an ostensible ally of the United States,”
allows its intelligence service to aid the Taliban in its fight against the
U.S. and the Afghan government.
The story then
quickly pivoted to the impact of the leaks on U.S. policy and politics. The
next day, the Times noted that the “documents increased pressure on President
Obama to defend his war strategy. On Capitol Hill, a leading Senate Democrat
said the documents, with their detailed account of a war faring even more
poorly than two administrations had portrayed, would intensify Congressional
scrutiny of Mr. Obama's policy.”
On the July 27
NBC newscast, correspondent Andrea Mitchell reported that inside Washington,
the big question was “whether this is a game changer” in terms of U.S. war
strategy. In the same report, Obama was quoted downplaying the new information,
declaring that “these documents don’t reveal any issues that haven’t already
informed our public debate on Afghanistan.”
That theme was soon reinforced by some other Washington figures. Appearing
on CNN on August 1, Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, said that, "We knew almost everything that's there. It
gives a little color to the battlefield struggles and to, you know, some of the
difficulties within the villages and so forth. But basically they are an
incomplete presentation of the challenge and not particularly game
changing."
And a July 29
report in the Los Angeles Times cast some doubt on one of the other explosive
suggestions in the documents— the idea that Taliban and its allies may have
surface-to-air missiles.
“One of the most
eye-catching revelations in a trove of classified documents posted on the
Internet this week was that insurgents apparently used a portable heat-seeking
surface-to-air missile to shoot down a twin-rotor CH-47 Chinook in Helmand
province in May 2007, ” the story stated. “Most experts believe that the
antiaircraft threat currently posed by the insurgents is relatively limited,
and that they don't have significant stocks of surface-to-air missiles, at
least for now.”
While the Pentagon warned that the documents
could put lives at risk in Afghanistan and pressed forward for an investigation
into the leak, it was unclear by week’s end whether the classified papers would
have any significant impact on the conduct of the war itself.
The Rest of the Week’s News
U.S.
District Court Judge Susan Bolton’s July 28 ruling blocking key portions of
Arizona’s immigration law—including
one mandating a check of immigration status when a person is stopped for other
violations—quickly became a hot political topic. The story dominated cable
news, where it filled 29% of the airtime studied by PEJ.
And
while Bolton’s decision was portrayed as a legal win for the administration
that had challenged the Arizona law, the verdict was not necessarily the same
when it came to the political implications. During a July 28 appearance on
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show, Nate Silver—founder of the FiveThirtyEight
political website which pays particular attention to polling data and number
crunching—saw initial gains for the Republicans.
“Short
term, the Arizona law is popular,” he said. “I think this plays more into
Republican hands in the short term where voters are concerned about the economy
and [it] creates more concerns, especially in border states, about
immigration.”
Guest
hosting for Bill O’Reilly on Fox News on July 30, Juan Williams wondered if
Obama was to blame for the lack of a federal immigration law. Noting that he
had promised to make that a priority in his first year, Williams declared: “Well
here we are a year and a half [into his term]. No bill, no action. So why
aren’t Latino activists demanding answers from the White House instead of
protesting in Arizona.”
The oil spill, at 12% of the
week’s newshole, continued to make the roster of top stories, although at
levels far reduced from its peak coverage. It did register as the No. 1 story
in the online sector (19%) and coverage was dominated by a focus on BP and on
the departure of Tony Hayward, who became a lightning rod for much of the anger
aimed at the oil company.
Indeed,
a July 26 story posted on AOL News quoted one Gulf Coast resident—reacting to
news that BP might offer Hayward a post in a Russian venture—quipping that "Sending
him to Siberia sounds like an appropriate place for him."
Meanwhile,
a July 28 Wall Street Journal story looked at BP’s battered finances, reporting
on its plans “to sell $30 billion in assets” and
replace “its gaffe-prone chief executive” and its promise “to
become a ‘different company’ more
focused on safety…For BP, the asset sales and new CEO are an attempt to begin
moving beyond a catastrophe that has wiped out nearly 40% of its market value
and put a question mark over its future in the U.S.”
Coverage
of the economy fell to 10% from July
26-August 1, down significantly from 17% the previous week when extending
unemployment benefits and Wall Street reform drove the coverage. Even so, it
did end up as the No. 1 story in two sectors last week, newspapers and radio
(both at 14%).
Among
the developments making news last week was the decision by Bell California city
council members to cut their salaries by 90% when a public outcry ensued after
the Los Angeles Times reported on number of hefty salaries among public
officials there.
Lead Newsmakers
One week after he was overshadowed
by Shirley Sherrod—the USDA employee forced to resign following the release of
an edited video of her speaking to the NAACP—Barack Obama returned to his usual
position as the top newsmaker.
From July 26-August 1, the president
and his administration registered as lead newsmaker in 8% of the week’s
stories, up from 5% the previous week. (To be a lead newsmaker, a figure must register
in at least 50% of a story.)
The No. 2 newsmaker was Democratic
Congressman Charles Rangel (New York) who figured in 4% of the stories after
the House Ethics Committee charged the former powerful Ways and Means Committee
chair with 13 counts of ethics violations. He was followed by another figure whose recent
headlines haven’t been kind, departing BP boss Tony Hayward (3%).
Robert Dudley, the man tapped to replace Hayward
at BP was the fourth-leading newsmaker, at 2% of the stories. And coming in as
No. 5 was another New York Democratic Congressman, Anthony Weiner (also 2%),
who erupted in an attention-getting outburst against Republicans during a debate
over a bill that would provide money to pay health costs for 9/11 first
responders. Even in a time of increasingly angry political rhetoric, the Congressman’s
behavior stood out. “Weiner Goes Ballistic on the House Floor,” declared the
headline on the Forbes website.
About the NCI
PEJ’s weekly News Coverage Index examines the news agenda of 52
different outlets from five sectors of the media: print, online, network
TV, cable and radio. (See List of Outlets.) The weekly study, which includes
some 1,100 stories, is designed to provide news consumers, journalists
and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics the media
are covering, the trajectories of that media narrative and differences
among news platforms. The percentages are based on "newshole," or the
space devoted to each subject in print and online and time on radio and
TV. (See Our Methodology.) In addition, these reports also
include a rundown of the week’s leading newsmakers, a designation given
to people who account for at least 50% of a given story.
Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ
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