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5:1 Ratio of swine flu stories to stories about cancer and heart disease in 2009 The much-anticipated rollout of the H1N1 vaccine generated major news the week of October 5-11, 2009. The limited supply and concerns about the safety of the vaccine helped make swine flu the No. 5 story that week, filling 5% of the newshole. That represented the third-biggest week of swine flu coverage since the virus surfaced in the spring. The subject filled 31% of the newshole from April 27-May 3, when the disease was first emerging as a global public health threat and 9% of the newshole the following week, (May 4-10). Since swine flu first made news in April there have been 1,134 stories about the illness, according to PEJ’s News Coverage Index. No other ailment comes anywhere close to matching that level of media interest. By way of comparison there have been 175 stories about caner, the next most covered disease. Some of that coverage was devoted to the case of 13-year-old cancer patient, Daniel Hauser, who went missing with his mother in May in an attempt to avoid chemotherapy treatment for the boy. Daniel and his mother returned and he has since received the treatment. Following cancer, two other problems that are often related, obesity and diabetes, generated 78 stories. Other diseases making news this year included mental health conditions (49), heart disease (41), autism (31), Alzheimer’s (28) and AIDS (22). Another 153 stories fell into the category of other diseases ranging from the common cold to sexually transmitted ailments to the seasonal flu. Tricia Sartor of PEJ
A trio of natural disasters in the Pacific Ocean made major news the week of September 28–October 4, 2009. On September 29, a massive tsunami struck the Samoa Islands and reportedly killed more than 175 people—with that story filling 4.2% of the newshole. One day later, an earthquake off the coast of Indonesia killed an estimated 1,100 people, accounting for 4.1% of the week’s coverage. Earlier in the week, a typhoon in the Philippines (0.9% of the newshole) led to the country’s worst flooding in more than 40 years, with more than 450 people reportedly lost. Combined, the three tragedies accounted for 9.2% of the newshole from September 28-October 4—making it the second-biggest week of natural disaster coverage in 2009. These stories generated more coverage (15.4% of the airtime studied) on the network newscasts than in any other media sector, a finding that confirms the networks’ general tendency, as measured by PEJ’s News Coverage Index, to devote significant coverage to natural disasters. The year’s single biggest week of natural disaster coverage was August 31–September 6. Coverage of wildfires burning near Los Angeles, which destroyed hundreds of homes and killed two firefighters, filled 9.6% of the newshole that week. Combined with coverage of Hurricane Jimena (1.0%), which struck Mexico but caused little damage, natural disasters filled 10.6% of the newshole that week. The No. 3 week was April 6-12, when an earthquake in Italy (5.8%) left 50,000 homeless and wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma (0.9%) destroyed dozens of homes and killed three people. Those two events combined to fill 6.7% of the newshole. The fourth-biggest week was May 4–10, when wildfires that scorched parts of Santa Barbara, Calif., (2.9%) and storms across the southern states that spawned at least 30 tornados (1.2%) combined to account for 4.1%. The No. 5 week was August 17-23, when Hurricane Bill in the Atlantic (3.0%), Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan (0.2%), and the early phase of the LA fires (0.3%) filled 3.5%. Next came the week of February 9-15 when wildfires across Australia (2.3%) and an out-of-season tornado in Oklahoma (1.2%) registered at 3.5%. Still, these disasters pale in comparison to what was, by far, the biggest natural disaster story since PEJ began tracking media coverage in January 2007. The October 21-26, 2007 wildfires in Southern California that destroyed an estimated 1,500 homes and claimed more than a dozen lives filled 37.5% of the overall newshole that week. Those fires were the second biggest story of 2007, trailing only the massacre that left 33 dead on the Virginia Tech campus, which filled 50.9% of the newshole from April 15-20, 2007. Tricia Sartor and Dana Page of PEJ Covering the Great RecessionThe economic downturn has made headlines for months. How has the press covered the gravest financial crisis since the Great Depression? What elements of the economic story make the most news? Who is driving the coverage? PEJ addresses these questions and more in a new report on press coverage of the economy. 
Covering the Great Recession
No. 1 - Rank of Najibullah Zazi story among most-covered U.S. terror cases since 2007
The case of Najibullah Zazi, the Afghan immigrant charged with conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction on U.S. soil, has captured headlines in recent days. During the week of September 21-27, when Zazi was indicted and more details of the case came to light, the story filled 7.7% of the newshole. That represented the highest level of weekly coverage for any alleged terror plot in the U.S. since PEJ began its News Coverage Index in January 2007. Tricia Sartor and Dana Page of PEJ
6th -Rank of Rep. Joe Wilson among top legislative newsmakers of 2009 If much of America had never heard of Joe Wilson before September 9, that changed with his “you lie” shout during Barack Obama’s speech on health care. Last week, Wilson was the subject of even more media attention as his House colleagues voted to rebuke him for the episode. The attention of the last two weeks (Wilson was the “lead newsmaker” in 69 of the roughly 2,600 stories PEJ studied in that time) was enough to rank Wilson as the sixth-leading Capitol Hill newsmaker in 2009. He is also the year’s second-leading newsmaker in the House of Representatives and the most covered Republican in Congress. (A lead newsmaker is someone is featured in at least 50% of a story.) That still leaves Wilson, however, well behind the most-covered legislator in 2009. That was the late Senator Edward Kennedy (lead newsmaker in 324 stories), whose August 25 death from a brain tumor dominated the news that week. The year’s second leading newsmaker in Congress (242 stories) was Senator Roland Burris who was selected—amid great controversy—to fill Obama’s senate seat by indicted former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. The third-leading Capitol Hill newsmaker (185 stories) was Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Next on the list of top newsmaking lawmakers were two senators who generated big political headlines. Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, a moderate Republican facing a re-election campaign in 2010, announced in April he was switching to the Democratic side of the aisle. He’s been a lead newsmaker in 127 stories this year. The No. 5 newsmaker was former comedian Al Franken (95 stories), the newly elected Democratic Senator from Minnesota who was sworn in this past July after being declared the winner of a contested election ultimately decided in that state’s Supreme Court. Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ
No. 2 - Rank of the Jaycee Dugard saga among most-covered missing person cases August 28, Jaycee Dugard walked into a California police station 18 years after being abducted at age 11. According to media reports, Dugard and her two daughters fathered by her alleged kidnapper, Phillip Garrido, were held in a compound in Garrido’s backyard, shielded from their neighbors’ view. The stunning case attracted significant media attention—even in a week that included the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy. The Dugard saga was the fifth-biggest story from August 24–30, 2009, filling 5.2% of the newshole. This level of attention made it the second-biggest missing person story since the PEJ’s News Coverage Index began in January 2007. In some ways, the Dugard episode is similar to the No. 1 such story—the case of Ben Ownby and Shawn Hornbeck. The 13-year-old Ownby went missing on January 8, 2007. Authorities found him four days later in the home of Michael Devlin—but Ownby was not alone. Shawn Hornbeck, who had been abducted in 2002 when he was 11, was also in Devlin’s home. That story accounted for 7.9% of the newshole the week of January 14-19, 2007. The third-biggest missing person case (5.2% of the newshole from June 17-22, 2007) involved 26-year-old Jessie Davis, who disappeared and was later found murdered by her boyfriend. The next-biggest story is the ongoing case of Natalee Halloway, who went missing May 30, 2005, in Aruba. On November 21, Joran van der Sloot, Satish Kalpoe, and Deepak Kalpoe were re-arrested based on new information. (They were later released.) That story filled 3.4% of the newshole the week of November 18-23, 2007. The No. 5 missing person story was the search for pro football players Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith, who were lost with two friends while on a fishing trip. Only one of the men survived. The story filled 3.0% of the newshole the week of March 2-8, 2009. Tricia Sartor and Dana Page of PEJ
12% - Percentage of economic coverage devoted to “Cash for Clunkers” during the program's five-week life span The economy—largely defined by the financial crisis that exploded last September—has been a dominant story this year. It accounted for nearly half of the newshole in the first two months after President Obama’s inauguration. And while attention has decreased recently, tied in part to a sense that the recession has bottomed out, it has still been the No. 2 story in the media agenda in the summer months. A series of major economic events helped drive the recent coverage, but the attention paid to one such event may come as a surprise. In late July, the government unveiled the Car Allowance Rebate System, providing up to $4500 to those who traded gas guzzlers for new more fuel efficient vehicles. The program got a catchy nickname—“Cash for Clunkers”—and proved so popular it had to be shut down this week after exhausting its funding. It also proved popular with the press. During the five weeks of its existence—from July 20-August 23—Cash for Clunkers was the No. 1 financial storyline, accounting for 12% of the coverage of the U.S. economy. The coverage included everything from consumers streaming into dealerships to the debate in Congress about adding $2 billion to the program to the impact on used car sales. A number of key economic themes ranked behind the car story in that time frame. The unemployment situation accounted for 10% of the newshole. Next, at 9%, were evaluations of the recession’s severity and duration. Then came the impact of the downturn on state and local governments and coverage of the banking industry, both at 8%. The housing market accounted for 7%. Coverage of the stimulus package and the recession’s effect on businesses not related to the financial sector rounded out the roster of the leading economic storylines—both at 6%. Maybe it is America’s storied love of the automobile. Maybe it was the program’s raging popularity. Or maybe it was the many media-friendly images that accompanied the story. Whatever the reason, clunkers proved to be the economic story of the late summer. Tricia Sartor and Dana Page of PEJ
213% - Increase in Afghanistan coverage since July 1 vs. first half of 2009 With a critical presidential election looming in the country and the U.S. forces pressing the fight against Taliban strongholds, the war in Afghanistan made a significant amount of news last week. From August 10-16, the subject attracted the most attention of any week in the more than two and a half years that the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has been tracking media coverage on ongoing basis. But last week’s spike, for those who have been paying close attention, didn’t come out of the blue. It was the latest sign of a growing focus on Afghanistan as U.S. policy there and the situation in Iraq have changed. Last week, the war in Afghanistan was the third-biggest story in the news, filling 5.5% of the newshole as measured by PEJ’s weekly News Coverage Index. To get a sense of how large a shift that represents, consider that for all of 2007 and 2008, Afghanistan accounted for only 0.9% of the overall newshole. By comparison, that was less attention during that period than was given to such other geopolitical hotspots as Pakistan (1.2%), Iran (1.4%), and most notably, the war in Iraq (9.5%). In the first half of 2009, as President Obama deepened the U.S. military commitment in Afghanistan and linked that war to the dangerous instability in neighboring Pakistan, coverage increased moderately—up to 1.6% of the newshole. But the big jump in attention has occurred since the beginning of the third quarter of 2009. From July 1 through August 16, the conflict accounted for 3.4% of the overall coverage and was the fifth-biggest story overall in a period that has included a U.S. military offensive, the deadliest month ever for American troops there and a Taliban video of captured U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl. It is unclear whether this recent uptick in coverage suggests a continuing trend. But after years of minimal media attention, the war in Afghanistan is starting to climb its way up the mainstream news agenda. And that cannot be simply attributed to a steady decline in media attention to Iraq. The coverage of that conflict has held steady all year at around 2%. Tricia Sartor of PEJ
When he took over the White House in January 2009, President Barack Obama quickly adopted much of the “faith-based initiative” put into place by his predecessor, President George W. Bush. The initiative was designed to expand the role of faith-based and community organizations in the delivery of social services.
Footnotes 1. “God’s place on the dais,” Bill Broadway, The Washington Post, Jan. 27, 2001 2. The following newspapers were used in the analysis: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune, The New York Times, USA Today and The Washington Post. 
70% - Percentage of top-10 air disaster stories that occurred in 2009 On August 3, Continental Flight 128, traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Houston, experienced severe turbulence. The plane reportedly shook violently and dropped, sending passengers into the aisles and crashing into overhead luggage bins. Fourteen people were hospitalized and the event generated 26 stories, filling 1.1% of the newshole from August 3-9, 2009. The story received more attention that week than events occurring inside Iraq. It appears that 2009 hasn’t been a particularly good year for air safety. According to the Flight International publication, air fatalities in the first half of the year exceeded the average tally over the past decade, and there have been several accidents since the end of June. That would be in keeping with a clear pattern of increased coverage. Indeed, seven of the ten most-covered plane accidents since PEJ began its News Coverage Index back in January 2007 have occurred in 2009. The year’s No. 1 air story actually involved no casualties. The January 15 U.S. Airways flight miraculously piloted to a safe landing in the Hudson River by Chesley Sullenberger has generated 266 stories to date. The second-biggest air saga (193 stories) was the June 4 crash of Air France Flight 447, which plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 228 people on board. The commuter that crashed near Buffalo on February 12 and killed 50 people was third, at 168 stories. Other 2009 air disasters that generated significant attention include the single-engine plane crash in Butte, Montana on March 2 that left 14 dead (35 stories); the Yemeni plane that crashed into the Indian Ocean on June 30 and killed 153 people (30 stories); and the Turkish Airlines flight that crashed near the Amsterdam airport on February 25, resulting in nine deaths (28 stories). The August 8 crash between a helicopter and a small plane over the Hudson River that took 9 lives occurred too late to be accurately represented in our sample for this report. Two of the 10 most-covered plane crashes in the past several years happened in 2008. Five died when a Marine jet crashed into a San Diego home on December 8 (31 stories). And the Spanair flight that crashed after takeoff in Madrid took 154 lives on August 20 (29 stories). In 2007, a flight that crashed on landing in São Paulo, Brazil left 199 dead on July 17 and generated 41 stories. Tricia Sartor and Dana Page of PEJ |
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