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2x - Twice as many debt ceiling stories focus on Obama as on all GOP officials combined With an August 2 deadline to raise the debt ceiling looming, the showdown in Washington is leading the news. Last week, July 18-24, attention to the issue accounted for a full 29% of the newshole making it by far the largest component of overall coverage of the economy (which has filled 35% of the newshole). As Democrats and Republicans have debated the issue, which party and what figures have been viewed as the key players by the media. An analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism finds President Barack Obama is getting by far the most attention. Of the debt ceiling stories from July 1-24 in which someone has prominently figured (featured in at least 50% of the story), Obama has been a major presence in 59% of the stories. All other Democrats made up another 15%, meaning the party is a major focus in fully 75% of the debt ceiling stories. By contrast, Republicans have been a primary focus in 33% of the stories—less than half as many as Democrats. (A story can prominently feature more than one figure). And unlike Obama, who has been by far the dominant democratic figure, several prominent Republicans have shared the attention. For instance, Speaker of the House John Boehner, who is leading GOP side in the negotiations, was prominently featured in 11% of the debt stories. Next is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at 6% and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor at 3%. McConnell’s counterpart, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, is a prominent figure in just 2% of the stories, and he is also the second most news-making Democrat. Tricia Sartor of PEJ
#1 - Rank of the Casey Anthony acquittal among verdict stories since January, 2007 As a legal and media extravaganza, the Casey Anthony murder trial may not have quite equaled the O.J. Simpson case. But it generated plenty of headlines last week, surprising many legal observers and media pundits and provoking a public outcry. The fallout from the July 5 verdict that found Anthony not guilty of killing her two-year-old daughter accounted for 17% of the newshole last week. That easily made it the most covered verdict or resolution of a court case since PEJ began tracking news coverage in January 2007. The No. 2 verdict story—13% from March 4-9, 2007—occurred when former vice presidential aide Scooter Libby was found guilty of perjury in connection with his involvement in leaking the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. Some suspected the leak was retaliation by the White House for an article written by her husband, Joe Wilson, which was critical of the Iraq War. At 7% of the newshole from March 9-15, 2009, the next biggest story on the resolution of a case involved Bernard Madoff, who pled guilty to defrauding clients out of $65 billion dollars over 25 years—the largest Ponzi scheme in history. He was ultimately sentenced to 150 years in prison. No. 4 was the outcome of former Illinois Governor Rod Balgojevich’s initial trail in which he was found guilty on one of 24 corruption counts against him and the jury was hung on the remaining 23, including charges that he tried to sell Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat. The week of August 16-22, 2010, that story accounted for 6% of the overall newshole. The prosecution quickly called for a retrial and on June 27, 2011, Blagojevich was found guilty of 17 of the 20 counts against him. (Coverage of that verdict accounted for 2% of the newshole.) The only other murder case on the roster of top stories was the verdict in the trial of Amanda Knox, an American student studying in Italy. Knox was convicted of sexually assaulting and killing her Italian roommateand was sentenced to 26 years in prison. The case is currently under appeal. It accounted for 2% of the story the week of November 30-December 6, 2009. Also at 2% the week of October 27-November 2, 2008 was the case involving the late Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who was convicted of lying to officials regarding major home renovations and other gifts paid for by an oil service company. Six months later, the federal judge threw out Stevens’s conviction citing prosecutorial misconduct and initiated a criminal investigation into six of the prosecutors. Tricia Sartor, PEJ
2/3 - Portion of news devoted to international affairs in the first half of 2011 In the first half of 2011, foreign events dominated the U.S. news media. The protests and violence throughout the Middle East and North Africa—known as the Arab Spring—were the most covered foreign events, accounting for 17% of the overall newshole, from January 1-June 30. Other significant stories included the tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan (5%) and the death of Osama bin Laden (4%), according to PEJ's News Coverage Index. Indeed, January-June 2011, international affairs have accounted for a full 39% of the U.S. newshole. This includes 19% which involve the U.S. and 20% that are not U.S.-related. This is 13% more than the average for each six-month period since 2007. International events have on average accounted fpr 26% of the newshole. The only other six month period to come close was the first half of 2007 when attention to the Iraq War help to boost international coverage to 35%. The period with the least amount of foreign news is the second half of 2008 when the 2008 Presidential Race kept journalists focused on the home front and international issues accounted for just 21%. But in the last few weeks, attention to foreign issues is again decreasing. And with an approaching presidential election, it is highly likely the trend away from international news will continue.
1114% - Jump in campaign coverage from January through May After a slow start, the 2012 presidential campaign—and the media coverage of it—has begun to take off. Attention in the mainstream press has increased more than six-fold from the first quarter of the year. Indeed for the past four weeks, the 2012 race has generated even more coverage than the 2008 campaign did during the same time period four years ago. This is particularly noteworthy given the nature of the two races. In 2008, there was competition for both a Republican and a Democratic nominations, with 21 major candidates announced by early June. This included historic runs from Hillary Clinton—the first viable female candidate—and Barack Obama—the first viable African American candidate. So far this year, while the Democrats have an incumbent running, on the Republican side just six nationally known individuals have declared their candidacy. The first major announcement came from former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich four weeks ago. (May 9-15 with 7.9%). As additional candidates made their formal announcements or exists, attention remained high. Last week (May 30-June 5), coverage of the 2012 Campaign reached its highest level (12.1%) when former Massachusetts Governor and current front-runner, Mitt Romney, formally entered the race. Also that week 2008 Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin kept many guessing about her 2012 ambitions as she continued her unorthodox bus tour across America. There are now 74 weeks left until Election Day. But after a slow beginning, the campaign, at least in the media, appears to have begun in earnest. Tricia Sartor of PEJ
87% - Decrease in coverage of Mideast unrest from February to May 2011 The so-called Arab Spring rages on. But if recent coverage is any indication, the U.S. media are not nearly as interested as they were a few months ago. Last week (May 23-29) alone, a government crackdown in Yemen reportedly killed more than 100 demonstrators; the European Union imposed new sanctions on Syria as reports surfaced that as many as 1,000 people have been killed in government crackdowns; Egypt decided to charge ex-president Hosni Mubarak in the deaths of protestors; and NATO announced a 90-day military extension in Libya as violence continued to escalate. Yet coverage of the Mideast unrest accounted for only 5% of the newshole last week, continuing a pattern of diminished attention to a story that dominated the mainstream news agenda in the first quarter of 2011 In February and March, for example, the Mideast turmoil accounted for 34% of all the coverage studied by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, more than double the attention to next biggest subject, the economy (15%). The first week in February, the violent protests in Egypt that would oust Mubarak drove coverage to 56%—making it the biggest international story in a single week since PEJ began tracking news in January 2007. The significant drop in Middle East coverage began in early April, only two weeks after the U.S. entry into the Libyan civil war drove coverage to 47% of the newshole from March 21-27. A possible government shutdown and new budget proposals drew attention to domestic issues and Middle East coverage dropped to 11% the week of April 4-10—down precipitously from 38% from the previous week. From that point on, coverage was only a fraction of what it had previously been. In April, the topic accounted for just 15% of the newshole and it fell even further, to only 5%, in May. There are a number of possible reasons for the plunge in media attention. For one thing, a number of volatile situations—the power transition in Egypt, the crackdown in Syria, and the fighting in Libya—have dragged on somewhat inconclusively. For another, extensive overseas coverage is an expensive proposition in an era of shrinking reporting resources. And other stories, such as the budget showdown, the 2012 presidential campaign and most notably, the death of Osama bin Laden, have emerged as major newsmakers in recent weeks. All of that may help explain why the tumultuous Arab Spring seems to have hit the summer doldrums with the U.S. media. Tricia Sartor of PEJ
3rd - Rank of the Obama-Netanyahu meeting among all Israeli events since 2007 The recent stress on the Israel-United States relationship—triggered by Obama’s May 19 speech in which he said that the 1967 Israeli borders should be a basis for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal—generated major news in the U.S. media last week, May 16-22. Indeed, with 11% of the newshole, it was the most covered Israeli diplomacy issue since PEJ began the News Coverage Index in January 2007. But the week ranks third among all Israeli events. The two that topped it were both military assaults. The 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza War, garnered more attention than any Israel-related story. As Israel began its ground attack in the Gaza strip, the week of January 5-11, 2009, the conflict accounted for 17% of the newshole studied. The second-most covered Israel event was that country’s May 31, 2010 deadly raid of flotillas headed to Gaza. The attack which killed nine activists and sparked an international outcry, accounted for 13% of the newshole from May 31-June 6. Other major weeks for Israeli news include the second week of the 2009 Israel-Gaza conflict (8% the week January 12-18), the Bush administration’s ambitious Mideast conference (8% from November 25-30, 2007) and the highly anticipated peace talks held in September 2010 ( 5% from August 30-September 5). Tricia Sartor of PEJ
1 - Number of stories in the first four months of 2011 in which Osama bin Laden was a dominant newsmaker The May 1 raid in Abbottabad Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden put the world’s most wanted terrorist at the top of the news agenda. According to PEJ’s News Coverage Index, from May 2-8, his death accounted for 69% of the newshole, making it the biggest single-week story since PEJ began tracking this in January 2007. For that week, bin Laden was also a dominant newsmaker in 28% (241 stories) of all stories studied by PEJ—a level not seen since President Obama’s inauguration more than two years earlier. (To be considered a dominant newsmaker, someone must be featured in at least 50% of a story.) But despite the extensive media attention to his death, a look at bin Laden coverage over the past four years shows a generally low level of coverage of the terror leader, with the exception of a few spikes. That coverage rarely focused on efforts to find and capture bin Laden or even to discuss his role in global terrorism. Instead, the al Qaeda leader made significant news for one thing—the release of a video or audio clip, which he would do at anniversaries to significant events or if he could tie an international event back to himself or al Qaeda. Then media attention to the video tended to fade quickly. For example, coverage in the third quarter of 2007, when bin Laden was a newsmaker in 88 stories (the most attention generated by far) was fueled by the release of two videos marking the 9/11 anniversary. One condemned the U.S. and encouraged Americans to embrace Islam, and the other was directed at Pakistanis and urged jihad against then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. In mid 2008 (11 stories), coverage of bin Laden focused on a video he released coinciding with Israel’s 60 year anniversary, calling for destruction of Israel and liberation of Palestine. In early 2009, bin Laden released a 22-minute video addressing newly elected President Obama on issues ranging from the economy to Israel (17 stories). During the next spike, in the third quarter of 2009, bin Laden released a message claiming that the U.S. will lose the Afghan War and that Europe should withdraw its forces (17 stories). In the first quarter of 2010 (17 stories), bin Laden used the debate over how to try alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khaled Sheikh Muhammed, to again threaten the U.S. in a video. He said there would be more American deaths if KSM was executed. And in the fourth quarter of 2010 (10 stories), bin Laden released a video criticizing Muslim nations for not providing enough aid as much of Pakistan flooded. But immediately prior to the SEAL attack on his compound, the al Qaeda leader had virtually vanished from U.S. mainstream media coverage. Indeed in the first four months of 2011 bin Laden was a dominant newsmaker in only one story. Tricia Sartor of PEJ In the first three days since the death of Osama bin Laden, the attention given to the event in both traditional and new media has been only nominally focused on the political ramifications of the terrorist’s death. Instead, the discussion across a broad range of mainstream media, on Facebook, Twitter and in the blogosphere, has centered on trying to sort out what happened and on people’s feelings about it—including significant debate in social media over whether the reports might be a hoax. But so far the coverage has defied the tendency seen in many major national news events to turn quickly partisan.
In the mainstream press, coverage has focused on trying to parse out the details leading up to and during the dramatic raid, and on sorting through the national and international reaction to it. Those two themes together accounted for half the bin Laden coverage since Sunday night, May 1, and through Wednesday, May 4.
On Facebook and Twitter, meanwhile, citizens have used these social media tools to express black humor about bin Laden’s death. The largest share of discussion there, 19%, has involved people sharing jokes. The second largest theme involved the question of whether bin Laden was really dead, and weighing the pros and cons of the proof offered. That discussion accounted for 17% of the conversation.
And in the blogosphere, which often takes a contrarian view to that offered in the mainstream media, the largest share of the discussion (14%) involved passing along news about the raid. Almost as much (13%) concerned fears about possible reprisals for bin Laden’s death. And a notable amount of the discussion, 10%, involved the hoax theme. These are some of the findings of a special report on media attention to bin Laden’s death produced by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The report used computer technology by Crimson Hexagon that examined more than 120,000 news stories, 100,000 blog posts, and 6.9 million posts on Twitter or Facebook from May 1 through May 4. There is no doubt the bin Laden story is huge. The early wall-to-wall coverage of the bin Laden story accounted for an extraordinary 89% of the mainstream media newshole on May 2 and May 3, as measured by PEJ’s ongoing News Coverage Index. At this pace, bin Laden’s death would easily be the biggest weekly story since the NCI began in January 2007. In an age when the media dialogue is thought to move at lightning speed, however, what may be most striking is how little the coverage and discussion on this topic have shifted since the event occurred Sunday, May 1. Humor, which was a strong initial response, has dropped off some in social media, but it still remains one of the most prevalent themes on Facebook and Twitter. Otherwise, the discussion over the first few days has remained fundamentally unchanged, deepening rather than quickly moving on to new dimensions of story in the way that we typically see, sometimes before the facts are fully reported. The calculus over who will benefit politically, for instance, has not shifted substantially. Similarly, the suspicions that bin Laden’s death was a hoax have not changed appreciably.
To produce this analysis, the Project matched its conventional coding with software provided by Crimson Hexagon, which allows researchers to analyze the conversation online from thousands of blogs and Twitter, Facebook and mainstream news sources in larger quantities and at faster rates than human coding can produce. According to Crimson Hexagon, their technology analyzes content “by identifying statistical patterns in the words used to express opinions on different topics.” PEJ ran three separate monitors for this report: one for mainstream news, one for blogs, and one for Twitter and Facebook combined. For each monitor, PEJ used the same Boolean search to identify relevant posts (Osama OR Laden). PEJ created a list of themes that were present in each medium related to the coverage or discussions about bin Laden’s death, and trained the monitors to recognize the presence of each theme in online text. Crimson Hexagon’s software then analyzed millions of posts and news stories to determine the percentages of conversation that fell into each category. Reconstruction and Reaction in the Mainstream Media
In unraveling exactly how the United States found and killed Osama bin Laden, the mainstream press found themselves reporting not only on an event of major consequence, but on an operation so viscerally daring and compelling it almost seemed more like the product of a Hollywood scriptwriter than the White House Situation Room. While that narrative was at its peak on May 2, it remained a substantial part of the coverage as the media learned new details, such as the fact that bin Laden was not armed as initially reported, and that the al Qaeda chief had made plans to escape any such attack. Over time, and as the decision was made on May 4 not to release photos of the deceased al Qaeda leader, coverage trying to reconstruct what happened during the raid grew.
The second-biggest storyline in the mainstream press was also one that involved reporting more than analysis. It detailed reactions to bin Laden’s death from around the world and around the country, and accounted for 24% of the bin Laden coverage monitored. A Virginia television station, for instance, told of the mother of a sailor killed in the attack against the U.S.S. Cole who cried for joy until “I don’t have any more tears.” A Reuters report on the response of Palestinian leaders found the more moderate Palestinian Authority lauding the news and the more hard-line Hamas condemning the killing. Jokes and Hoax on Facebook and Twitter
While most mainstream media coverage is produced by professional journalists, the social media tools of Facebook and Twitter reflected more of the ordinary citizen response to the events of May 1. It also might be the most robust in quantity. Indeed, PEJ’s use of Crimson Hexagon captured nearly 7 million posts over the three days about bin Laden. These social media users evinced a distinct news agenda, one dominated by the platforms’ central function of sharing and spreading news and information, something PEJ has often seen in its weekly New Media Index reports. Conspiracies and Concerns in the Blogosphere
In the last two years that PEJ has monitored blogging each week, we have found that the discussion on any given issue often tends to break along partisan lines and to divide in fairly broad ways. That has not been the case with the bin Laden story. One of the things that has distinguished the early discussion of the event in the blogosphere is that it has been more wide-ranging and balanced than in the other media platforms. About this Report
A number of PEJ staff members assisted in the production of this special report, “Steering Clear of Politics: How the Media Has Covered bin Laden’s Death.” They include: researcher Kevin Caldwell, senior researcher Paul Hitlin, research associate Jesse Holcomb, researcher Nancy Vogt, researcher and coder Steve Adams, associate director Mark Jurkowitz, deputy director Amy Mitchell, director Tom Rosenstiel and press relations associate Dana Page.
The amount of coverage devoted to the story in the mainstream press was derived from PEJ’s News Coverage Index. The full methodology for the NCI is available here. For the complete topline, click here.
4 - Rank of the recent shutdown drama among most covered Beltway battles since January 2007 The looming government shutdown, narrowly avoided by a last-minute compromise on April 8, topped the news the week of April 4-10. With the media closely monitoring the ups and downs of the negotiations and partisans on both sides using the press to convey key positions, attention to the story accounted for 29% of the newshole, according to PEJ’s News Coverage Index. While that makes it one of the most covered Beltway battles since the NCI began in January 2007, several other Capitol Hill face-offs have generated even more attention. The No. 1 congressional fight, in terms of coverage, was the March 2010 vote on health care reform after a long and bitter battle. The political showdown may have been at its fiercest during the summer of 2009, when a series of town hall meetings erupted in anger. But after a Republican win in a special Massachusetts Senate election deprived President Obama of 60 Democratic seats in that body, he re-ignited a push for the bill in early 2010. The week that the bill passed, March 22-28, it accounted for a full 45% of the newshole. The next biggest congressional fight was the only one on the list to involve foreign, rather than domestic policy. On January 4, 2007, a Democratic-controlled Congress, determined to curtail the Iraq war, was sworn in. On January 10, President George W. Bush announced a “surge” of more than 20,000 troops into Iraq. With the battle lines clearly drawn, the fierce debate over Iraq policy filled 34% of the newshole the week of January 7-12. After numerous legislative efforts to try and reduce the U.S. role in Iraq, the president finally prevailed in May 2007 when Congress voted to fund the war without imposing withdrawal timetables. The third most covered congressional battled revolved around the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that allowed the U.S. Treasury to buy ‘troubled assets’ from banks amid concerns of a collapse of the financial sector. The measure was controversial and cost an originally estimated $700 billion. (That has subsequently been reduced to $19 billion as many companies paid back the money). After one failed vote, the plan passed with bi-partisan support two days later, accounting for 32% of the newshole the week of September 29 – October 5, 2008. The No. 5 Capitol Hill fight, in terms of coverage, was the 2009 stimulus vote intended to give a jolt to a staggering economy. The bill, with a price tag of $787 billion, triggered a major partisan battle and passed with no Republican support in the U.S. House and just three GOP moderates supporting the bill in the U.S. Senate. The passage accounted for 28% of the newshole the week of February 9-15, 2009. Tricia Sartor of PEJ
3 - Number of stories filling at least 50% of the weekly newshole in 2011 On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami devastated parts of Japan, leaving more than 25,000 dead or missing and triggering the biggest nuclear radiation scare since the Chernobyl disaster 25 years earlier. From March 14-20, earthquake coverage accounted for 57% of the newshole, making it not only the biggest foreign story since PEJ began its News Coverage Index in 2007, but one of only seven news events to account for more than half the coverage in a given week. But if a story that generates that much press attention is rare, that hasn’t been the case this year. Indeed, the crisis in Japan is the third event in 2011 to account for more than 50% of the weekly newshole in the first quarter of the year. That is all the more remarkable given that, from 2007 through 2010, only one event each year generated that level of coverage. The other mega-stories in 2011 include Middle East turmoil, which accounted for 56% of the newshole from January 31-February 6, when images of the massive protests in Egypt began to stream in from journalists on the ground. And the January 8 Tucson shooting spree, which left six people dead and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords severely wounded, filled 57% from January 10-16. (There was a near miss the week of March 21-27 when the Mideast unrest, this time driven by fighting in Libya, accounted for 47% of the newshole.) In 2010, the only story to pass the 50% threshold was the November 2 midterm election. That event—which saw Republicans win the U.S. House and make major gains in the U.S. Senate and in state houses throughout the country—accounted for 57% the week of November 1-7. In 2009, coverage of the faltering U.S. economy—fueled by news that insurance giant AIG had paid out millions in bonuses after taking a major taxpayer bailout—accounted for 53% of the newshole from March 16-22. The historic 2008 presidential election produced several weeks of massive coverage, generating more than 50% on eight different occasions. The biggest week, at 69%, occurred from August 25-31, when the Democrats nominated Barack Obama at their Denver convention and John McCain stunned the political world by selecting a then-unknown Sarah Palin as his Republican running mate. The Palin phenomenon then continued to generate major coverage (58% from September 1-7), making that the second biggest week of campaign news. In 2007, the only story to top 50% of the newshole was the April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech massacre when 32 students and teachers were killed before gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, committed suicide. Coverage accounted for 51% of the newshole the week of April 15-20. Tricia Sartor of PEJ |
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