News Index
For the week of May 30-June 3, 12% of the news links on blogs were about the potential candidate’s actions, making Palin the No. 1 subject, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. This is the first time in two months that politics led the discussion on blogs.
The last time was in early March when the crop of potential Republican candidates for the 2012 presidential campaign was the most linked-to subject. Other hot political topics in recent weeks such as the presence of Donald Trump’s potential candidacy, the release of President Obama’s original birth certificate, and even the negotiations that nearly resulted in a federal government shutdown were not enough to turn the blogosphere’s attention to politics. At 12%, the story was not an overwhelming portion of the conversation when compared to the portion garnered by other top stories, such as the breakup of Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger three weeks ago (41%) or the death of Elizabeth Taylor in March (33%). But it drew bloggers in and was large enough to top all other subjects last week.
Two specific Palin-related events drew attention from bloggers. The first was the May 29 kickoff at the Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally in Washington, D.C., and the second was the June 2 visit to New Hampshire which coincided with Mitt Romney’s formal announcement that he was running for president. The tone of the conversation regarding Palin was split, although not along traditional ideological lines. Liberal bloggers were critical and thought that her attention-getting tour was harmful for the Republican Party. Conservatives, however, were divided. Some agreed with liberals—at least in seeing Palin as an obstacle to success in finding a GOP nominee who could beat Obama in 2012. But others expressed support for her—seeing her as a popular, grassroots figure whose actions are creating needed energy in the party. And while some conservative bloggers offered their take on whether Palin would decide to run or not, very few expressed confidence in their predictions. Another political issue also made it among the most-linked to stories last week: the tense White House meeting between President Obama and House Republicans about the federal debt ceiling. The story was the fourth largest subject at 8%. According to the LA Times, “the two sides traded complaints, accusing each other of partisanship and posturing” rather than making progress toward an agreement. Most of the bloggers who discussed the meeting were liberal and focused on two aspects. One was a disarming quote from Obama and the other was the potentially dangerous consequences to the economy if an agreement to raise the debt ceiling is not reached. Palin’s Bus Tour As Palin journeyed on her unconventional bus tour that may or may not be the beginning of a presidential campaign, many online noted how Palin did not need to follow the traditional steps most candidates take. “Sarah Palin appears to be on a mission to do it differently,” wrote Matt Hames at People Like to Share. “Instead of using the press to get out her message, she is getting out her message with Facebook and Twitter…Love her or not, this is going to be interesting to watch.” Some focused on the first event of her tour. “Sarah Palin joined the ROLLING THUNDER ride today in Washington DC,” posted Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit along with pictures and video of Palin’s interactions at the rally. “It looks like she was a hit.”* “Obama could never ever go to a rally like that and he knows it,” added NeoKong on the same web page. “I see all this as more of Palin's sickness that requires her to be the center of attention, even if it's at the expense of the Veterans,” wrote an anonymous commenter on Right Speak. “This was nothing more than a photo-op. She is no more a biker than I am a writer.” While Palin claimed her arrival in New Hampshire the same day of Mitt Romney’s official campaign kick-off was pure coincidence, bloggers universally agreed that she knew what she was doing—and that it was harmful to Romney. “Of course Palin claims that her being in New Hampshire at the same time Mitt is making his announcement is strictly coincidental. Nonsense,” declared Right Wing Thinking. “Palin is very politically shrewd and is hyper aware of the wattage her megaphone carries…The…reason might be that Palin (like many TEA Partiers) thinks Romney is an awful candidate and sinking him now would insure a true conservative prevails in 2012.” “If I were Mitt Romney and I had let everyone know that I was going to announce that I was running for president in a speech in New Hampshire, I would despise Sarah Palin for this,” admitted Brobrubel’s Blog. “And then the Thrilla from Wasilla brings her buscapade to the state and blows him away. Don’t think for a minute that she didn’t know what she was doing.” As evidence, a number of bloggers pointed to the front page of the state’s largest newspaper the following day. “Friday's front page of the New Hampshire Union Leader…has Romney's launch seriously overshadowed by two other events: The death of former Gov. Walter Peterson (R) -- and Sarah Palin's tour of the state. The latter was given the banner headline just above the fold, ‘Palin Hits The Seacoast,’ plus a large photo of Palin and her daughter Piper,” pointed out Eric Kleefeld at Talking Points Memo. “By comparison, Romney's kickoff was reduced to a mere inset photo within text of the Palin piece, and a small headline, ‘Romney Announces.’” Liberals offered unabashed criticism of Palin’s actions, though some also noted the potential advantage they felt it could bring to the Democratic Party. “Those of us opposed to Palin may realize an additional benefit of having her run in the primary. With a pit bull loose in the GOP primary we may see attacks on every GOP candidate who runs against Sarah Palin,” expressed Malia Litman. “Even if Palin doesn’t ultimately win the GOP nomination, the fatality of her bite may prove to be lethal to the Republican Party.” “Don’t look now but we now know Sarah Palin’s role. She’s the wingnut ombudsman from Tea Party country putting the Republican establishment on notice,” suggested Taylor Marsh, implying that Palin will not run. “From this perch she’ll throw pot shots at presidential wannabes not keeping true to We the People…It’s from here she’ll also amass her platform for Fox News channel as conscience of the new conservatives.” Conservatives were split on the impact of Palin’s tour. “Her tour has not been furnishing an itinerary to the press, yet her activities are top news at outlets left-wing, main-stream, and right-of-center alike,” declared R. Mitchell at Conservative Daily News. “With that kind of publicity and drawing power comes influence. Electoral influence. The establishment candidates know that they will struggle to take primaries in states where the Tea Parties are strong and well-organized. Sarah turns those grass-roots messages into the news of the day.” “All this activity is timed to soak up the maximum amount of media attention, exploiting the rumors of a potential Presidential run to further raise Palin’s profile,” wrote Zazu at The Constitution Club. “One thing is certain, regardless of her final decision, she is helping Romney and Obama at the expense of her own conservative base.” Those that chose to predict what Palin would decide usually did so without much certainty. “I still think Sarah Palin is not running,” suggested Erick Erickson at RedState. “All that said, as this bus tour rolls along, I think she is seeing if she can affect an uptick in favorability ratings. If she can, I think she might change her mind. Should Palin get in, she will be a game changer.” Debt Ceiling Meeting According to the Los Angeles Times, the June 1 White House meeting between Obama and House Republican leaders about the economy and the prospect of raising the country’s debt ceiling left most of the issues unresolved. Rather than debate the issue, though, many bloggers remarked on a specific quote from the session. In responding to claims that Democrats were using demagoguery to criticize GOP plans on Medicare, Obama responded that he himself had been the subject of prejudicial attacks. “I'm the death-panel-supporting, socialist, may-not-have-been-born-here president,” Obama reportedly said. Supporters of Obama loved the sentiment. “Thank you LOL,” cheered Chipsticks at The Obama Diary after reprinting the quote. “Jeez, I love this man!” “Not bad...please show backbone,” encouraged Attaturk at Rising Hegemon. “Go get 'em, Bam!”added D.C. Exile. There were some bloggers who focused on the actual legislative debate—mostly liberals who questioned the Republican position of no debt ceiling raise unless accompanied by spending reductions. “Suppose we had a Republican president and a Democratic House. And suppose Democrats decided they would block any debt ceiling increase unless the president agreed to a credible plan to slow greenhouse gas emissions. Would you object to such a demand?” asked Jonathan Chait at The New Republic. “The debt ceiling has nothing to do with any particular policy choices -- it's just a routine vote that used to be an opportunity for the minority party to embarrass the president, which Republicans are turning into a hostage opportunity.” “I can’t believe that we have a political party [Republicans] that is so intent on damaging an administration that it’s going to frighten the global economy into a possibly game changing reshuffling of what the base of financial world’s ‘risk free’ rate and global safe haven currency may be in the future,” explained dakinikat at Sky Dancing. The Rest of the Week on Blogs The other top stories on blogs last week included a health warning, an investigation into the local government in Los Angeles, and an effort to change sentences for some drug offenders. The No. 2 story, at 9%, was a report by the World Health Organization that cell phones are “possibly carcinogenic” and dangerous to humans. This news was a departure for the organization which had previously said there were no risks from such exposure. Bloggers were alarmed by the news and many linked to a 2008 CNN.com story that featured five tips to limit cell phone risk and exposure to radiation. The No. 3 story, at 9%, was about a confidential memo sent to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa that was accidentally released to hundreds of other people. According to the memo, written by General Manager Robert Ovrom, an FBI probe into corruption at the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety has expanded to look into wrongdoing by city supervisors—not just rank-and-file inspectors. The investigation could have a lasting impact on the city’s government. A proposal supported by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to correct disparities in prison sentences between crack and powder cocaine offenders was fifth at 7%. If the plan goes into effect, it could impact more than 12,000 federal prisoners. On the social networking site Twitter, social media strategies for small businesses and international warnings about the environment took the lead.
The top subject, with 16% of the links, dealt with how small businesses use the location-based app called foursquare. Most of the attention was to a Mashable story listing the top five mistakes committed by small businesses using the platform including giving away too much product via specials and not advertising that their company is a Foursquare merchant. Stories about global warming were second at 11%. Most of the focus was about a report by the International Energy Agency which stated that greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year. Consequently, the hopes of holding global warming to safe levels, according to the Agency, are all but out of reach. Warnings by Oxfam, an international confederation of organizations fighting poverty, that food prices could rise by more than 120% in the next 20 years due in part to global warming, was the third story at 9%. A survey of Twitter users completed by the Twitter Q&A search service inboxQ that showed that 64% of users were more likely to make a purchase from a business that answered their questions on Twitter was the fourth story, also at 9%. And a plan by Germany to phase out all the country’s nuclear power plants by 2022 was fifth at 7%. The goal is to find renewable sources of energy to replace the power currently coming from those plants. YouTube On YouTube, an economic crisis overseas drew the most attention last week. The top two most-viewed news videos focused on the ongoing financial problems occurring in Spain. The No. 1 video shows violent clashes between the Catalan regional police and protesters in Barcelona’s Plaza Catalunya on May 27. Called the “indignados” (the indignant), the protestors set up camp in the center of the square to protest Spain’s financial crisis, the unemployment rate, and the austerity measures imposed by the Spanish government. As the police tried to evict the demonstrators in order to allow the city’s sanitary department to have access to the square, police are seen hitting protestors with clubs. The No. 2 video is a humorous Spanish animation by Aleix Salo explaining the housing bubble market in Spain.
The New Media Index is a weekly report that captures the leading commentary of blogs and social media sites focused on news and compares those subjects to that of the mainstream press. PEJ's New Media Index is a companion to its weekly News Coverage Index. Blogs and other new media are an important part of creating today's news information narrative and in shaping the way Americans interact with the news. The expansion of online blogs and other social media sites has allowed news-consumers and others outside the mainstream press to have more of a role in agenda setting, dissemination and interpretation. PEJ aims to find out what subjects in the national news the online sites focus on, and how that compared with the narrative in the traditional press. A prominent Web tracking site Icerocket, which monitors millions of blogs, uses the links to articles embedded on these sites as a proxy for determining what these subjects are. Using this tracking process as a base, PEJ staff compiles the lists of links weekday each day. They capture the top five linked-to stories on each list (25 stories each week), and reads, watches or listens to these posts and conducts a content analysis of their subject matter, just as it does for the mainstream press in its weekly News Coverage Index. It follows the same coding methodology as that of the NCI. Note: When the NMI was launched in January 2009, another web-tracking site Technorati was similarly monitoring blogs and social media. PEJ originally captured both Technorati's and Icerocket's daily aggregation. In recent months, though, this component of Technorati's site has been down with no indication of when it might resume. The priorities of the bloggers are measured in terms of percentage of links. Each time a news blog or social media Web page adds a link to its site directing its readers to a news story, it suggests that the author of the blog places at least some importance on the content of that article. The user may or may not agree with the contents of the article, but they feel it is important enough to draw the reader's attention to it. PEJ measures the topics that are of most interest to bloggers by compiling the quantitative information on links and analyzing the results. For the examination of the links from Twitter, PEJ staff monitors the tracking site Tweetmeme. Similar to Icerocket, Tweetmeme measures the number of times a link to a particular story or blog post is tweeted and retweeted. Then, as we do with Icerocket, PEJ captures the five most popular linked-to pages each weekday under the heading of "news" as determined by Tweetmeme's method of categorization. And as with the other data provided in the NMI, the top stories are determined in terms of percentage of links. (One minor difference is that Tweetmeme offers the top links over the prior 24 hours while the list used on Icerocket offers the top links over the previous 48 hours.) The Project also tracks the most popular news videos on YouTube each week. *For the sake of authenticity, PEJ has a policy of not correcting misspellings or grammatical errors that appear in direct quotes from blog postings. Note: PEJ's weekly News Coverage Index includes Sunday newspapers while the New Media Index is Monday through Friday.
By Paul Hitlin and Sovini Tan, PEJ
As the recovery appeared to falter, the U.S. economy accounted for 19% of the newshole during the week of May 30-June 5, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. That represented the biggest week for economic coverage since April 11-17, when the narrowly averted government shutdown helped to make that subject the focus of 39% of the newshole. The growing sense that the economic recovery has stalled invited the media to weigh the impact on President Obama, with analysts noting that his reelection prospects were not helped by last week’s news. The week’s No. 2 story was a related subject—the 2012 presidential election—that has slowly but steadily crept to the fore of the mainstream media agenda. Last week, attention to the race—mostly focusing on the emerging and potential crop of Republican candidates—accounted for 12% of the newshole, its biggest week of coverage yet. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney generated substantial attention with his long-expected entrance into the race on June 2. (He was the No. 2 lead newsmaker last week, the focus of 4% of all stories studied by PEJ). Another former governor—the undeclared Sarah Palin—generated considerable coverage as she launched a bus tour of some of the nation’s famous historical sites that had the media fervently chasing her. Palin was the No. 3 newsmaker, also at 4%. (In order to register as a dominant newsmaker, a person must be featured in at least 50% of a story). The lurid side of American politics was also on display as the media focused on two scandals last week. The No. 4 story (4%) involved the indictment of former vice presidential nominee John Edwards on charges that he misused campaign funds to conceal an affair with his mistress. At No. 5 (also 4%) was the appearance of a revealing image on the Twitter account of New York Rep. Anthony Weiner—a scandal that lingered when the congressman could not say with certitude that the photo was not of him. (On June 6, Weiner admitted the photo was of him and said that he had inappropriate communications with a half dozen women). Turmoil in the Middle East surfaced again among the top stories last week as violence in Yemen and the departure of that country’s president to Saudi Arabia sparked concerns of all-out civil war. That topic was the No. 3 story, at 9% of the newshole. And one week after the deadly tornado that devastated Joplin, Missouri was the No. 1 story, bad weather continued to make news last week. That aftermath of the Joplin disaster filled 3% of the newshole, while additional flooding and tornadoes—including one that killed several in Springfield, Massachusetts—accounted for another 2%. A Stalled Recovery with Political Ramifications The media’s mood about the state of the economy darkened last week, as disappointing employment numbers added to an already gloomy report on the housing sector. “The economy clearly just hit a brick wall” said economist Paul Ashworth, quoted in a New York Times June 3 piece about hiring numbers. The Labor Department on Friday reported that only 54,000 jobs had been added, about a third of what economists had been expecting. It was also reported that the unemployment rate went up to 9.1% in May. The news wasn’t any better on the housing front. “The double-dip that everyone was worried about is here, with home prices falling to their lowest level in nine years,” reported a sober George Stephanopoulos on the June 1 edition of ABC’s Good Morning America. Meanwhile, the media continued to cover the partisan conflict on Capitol Hill about raising the nation’s debt ceiling. Last week Republican lawmakers introduced a measure to raise the debt ceiling only to overwhelmingly vote it down. Democratic lawmakers called it political theater. But it set the tone for Obama’s meeting with House Speaker John Boehner and other House Republican leaders about the matter.
A Given the increased attention to the 2012 campaign, the grim economic news was treated as a political story by a number of journalists last week. A June 2 Reuters article led with the idea that Obama could have trouble ahead.“Disappointing news on the U.S. economy—the issue most important to American voters—has cast a cloud over President Barack Obama’s hopes of reelection next year.” “President Obama is trying to put the jobs picture in the best possible light, but right now it’s casting a shadow on his reelection campaign” said CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on the June 3 Situation Room program. The Romney Announcement and the Palin Media Chase Mitt Romney kicked off his presidential campaign with a direct jab at the president during his June 2 announcement at a New Hampshire farm, saying “Barack Obama has failed America.” The Wall Street Journal reported that day that Romney would try to position himself as someone qualified to handle a troubled economy. “The launch came at an uncertain time for the U.S. economy but an auspicious moment for a candidate who has made job creation and economic growth the focus of his campaign,” the story stated.
On June 1, CBS political reporter Jan Crawford described the media frenzy surrounding the possible presidential candidate on her bus tour that started with the Rolling Thunder biker rally to commemorate veterans on the Memorial Day holiday. “And all the way, reporters were chasing behind her with the same question”—whether she would run for president. “Her tour is really stealing the political thunder from some of the other prospective candidates. With Michele Bachmann in New Hampshire today, Tim Pawlenty in Iowa, most of the media focus instead was on Palin,” said Crawford. Not only would Palin not commit to a presidential run, she would also not reveal her tour schedule with members of the press, who complained about being left out of the loop. “I don’t think I owe anything to the mainstream media,” the former Alaska governor said to Fox News host Greta Van Susteren in a May 30 interview. Even so, the press managed to follow her from Washington to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, then to Baltimore’s Fort McHenry and then Philadelphia and New York City for a lunch with Donald Trump. It was Palin’s stop in New Hampshire on the same day that Romney announced, however, that really fueled the chatter machine of cable news and talk radio. CNN host Anderson Cooper on June 2 described it this way: “On the day when Romney planned on grabbing all the headlines, well, Palin did him one better and showed up in—you guessed it—New Hampshire.” Palin made some unwelcome news at a June 2 stop in Boston. Asked by the press to reflect on the historical significance of Revolutionary War hero Paul Revere, her recounting of his famous ride was dissected, and mocked in many quarters, for a questionable adherence to the historical facts. Even before Palin’s Paul Revere flap, a Washington Post article on June 3 assigned her a “bushel of Pinocchios” on her bus tour, criticizing Palin’s a “trademark style of making broad assertions with only a shaky command of the facts.” The Rest of the Week’s News As tensions continued to simmer around the Middle East (the No. 3 story 9%) last week, the media turned their gaze to Yemen, where dozens of people were killed in clashes between government forces and tribal protesters. On June 2, days before the president would leave the country for Saudi Arabia, ABC’s Diane Sawyer described the situation as “teetering on the brink of civil war.” Two political scandals made headlines last week, one the No. 4 story, the other at No. 5. On Friday, former vice presidential nominee and South Carolina Democratic Senator John Edwards was indicted in the latest chapter in a long narrative of decline and fall from public grace. “Even before today’s criminal indictment,” said liberal host Rachel Maddow on her June 3 MSNBC show, “John Edwards’ affair was newsworthy. Not because a powerful politician was caught catting around on his wife—and there’s supposedly a sex tape and all the rest of it—but because while he was catting around, he campaigned on the strength of his marriage.” New York Congressman Anthony Weiner found himself in the uncomfortable position of having to explain the appearance of a revealing photograph sent from his Twitter account over the weekend. (The photo depicted a male, from below the waist, clad only in underwear). When asked directly about the origin of the photo by Wolf Blitzer in a CNN interview on Wednesday June 1, Weiner said that he could not say “with certitude” that the photo was not of him, but added in his defense that “photos can be manipulated.” (At an emotional press June 6 press conference, Weiner acknowleged that he made “terrible mistakes” and “was deeply sorry.”) Newsmakers of the week
The No. 2 newsmaker was Mitt Romney (4%) as the former governor of Massachusetts announced his bid for the presidency. Sarah Palin, the No. 3 newsmaker at 4%, maintained she was not launching a campaign, but rather on a family vacation that just happened to stop in the Granite State on Romney’s big day. Finally, at No. 4 and No. 5, were John Edwards and Anthony Weiner, two men who certainly would have preferred to avoid the headlines last week. They were each the focus of 3% of stories. 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 1,000 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. Jesse Holcomb of PEJ
From May 23-27, the top story on blogs (34% of the news links) was the May 23 U.S. Supreme Court ruling ordering California to release thousands of prisoners due to overcrowding, making it the No. 1 subject, according to PEJ's New Media Index. The Court's 5-4 decision found that the overcrowding led to "needless suffering and death" among prisoners. But that position held little sway with most bloggers who were upset with the ruling and far more concerned about a threat to public safety than any dangers posed to the inmates. Another California crime story, the May 22 arrest of a suspect accused of severely beating a San Francisco Giants baseball fan at Dodgers Stadium in March, was the No. 3 story on blogs, at 13%. It had been almost two months since the initial highly publicized incident occurred, and bloggers expressed relief that an arrest was finally made in a case that has left the victim fighting for his life. Crime-related issues do not often top the weekly roster of blogosphere subjects. Indeed, since PEJ began tracking social media in January 2009, this is only the eighth such story to register as No. 1. (The last one to finish first, March 28-April 1, was also a Supreme Court decision-that one overturning a verdict awarding $14 million to a man formerly on death row.) But clearly, the prisoner ruling and heinous nature of the Dodger Stadium case elicited strong reactions last week from bloggers, who expressed visceral concerns about safety and crime. The second-largest subject on blogs, with 21% of the links, was an event that didn't happen. Harold Camping, head of the Christian Family Radio broadcast network, predicted that Saturday, May 21, would be Judgment Day and the Rapture would occur according to Biblical teachings. Camping's prediction received significant media attention and his followers spent significant time and money to spread the word. Many bloggers viewed the incident as laughable and characterized Camping's followers as naive, but a number of religious bloggers also discussed the incident. A few commenters also felt badly for those who had devoted so much time and energy to the cause. The story that dominated the mainstream media last week, the devastating May 22 tornado that killed more than 100 people in Joplin, Missouri, was a far smaller topic among bloggers, registering as the week's No. 4 story at 6%. Those who did comment on the tragedy expressed sympathy for those suffering. A three-year-old op-ed column-written in 2008 by current presidential candidate Mitt Romney opposing the bailouts of General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford-was the fifth subject, also at 6%. After the Romney campaign recently claimed that the former Massachusetts governor advocated a form of the Detroit bailout before President Obama and deserved some of the credit for its success, bloggers posted his 2008 remarks and criticized him for hypocrisy.
The most popular story, at 7%, was a set of recommendations on Mashable for entrepreneurs to build their brands online. Among the suggestions were creating a custom URL shortener, setting up meetups, and creating a monthly newsletter. Also at 7%, the second biggest story was a report that Facebook was partnering with media companies for a new feature that will integrate video and music into users' profile pages. The goal is have Facebook become a "central hub" for multimedia online. Lady Gaga was the third largest subject at 6%. This marks the second week in a row when the pop singer was among the most Tweeted subjects. This past week, the focus was an article about how Lady Gaga created a large online marketing presence for her new album entitled Born This Way by partnering with companies such as Starbucks and popular features of social media such as the game FarmVille. News that Twitter has created a new function called ‘Following' which allows people to click on someone else's profile and see Twitter in the same manner that they do, was the fourth story (at 6%). And fifth, also at 6%, was a list of eight brands that had found success promoting themselves on Facebook-including companies like The Pampered Chef and Oreo. Supreme Court Ruling on Prison Overcrowding In light of the Supreme Court's decision ordering the state to release prisoners, Governor Jerry Brown and California officials have declared that they had already instituted a plan to shift low-level offenders to county jails and other facilities. But most of the bloggers who discussed the decision to order California to release prisoners due to overcrowding worried about the consequences for the public. "The real tragedy, however, is yet to come, when we start seeing lives and families torn apart by thieves, rapists, and murderers who were released by this terrible decision," wrote BJC's Blog. "If you support this decision, just ask yourself: would you still support it if your spouse or child ends up being one of these future victims?" "The flood of violent felons are about to be released, in a state that has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. Not a good combination for the law abiding citizens," warned Gun Shy Tourist at Around O-Town. Many showed no sympathy for prisoners living in crowded situations. "Oh NOES! The poor prisoners are forced to share sleeping space in a GYM? They have to share a TOILET? The HORROR! I wonder if the victims of their crimes were afforded the same decency that the SCOTUS is demanding they be given," posted Chris at MangrumsNet.* Some connected the problem to the state as a whole. "The sweeping social experiment that California has embraced over the years has now reached a peak that, conversely, could prove to be its bottom," concluded David J. Hentosh at Thomas Jefferson Club Blog. "Pandora's Box is now open in California and the social experiment is in full swing. The Supreme Court has given us a taste of its ideology that will surely surface again when illegal immigration comes before it and amnesty is granted." While much less common, a few people focused on the issue of overcrowding and discussed ways to improve the situation. "We have already shown the world that incarcerating large amounts of people for long periods of time won't solve the problems of either crime or drug use (or any other social problems)," explained Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger. "It is time to find real solutions. A good place to start would be to change laws to create more reasonable prison sentences and to legalize drug use and possession (and fight its use through education and treatment)." Arrest in the Baseball Beating Case After the Los Angeles Police Department spent months trying to identify the two suspects in the March 31 beating of a Giants fan named Bryan Stow, the news that a SWAT team had made one arrest was greeted with cheers from the blogosphere. "The campaign to find those responsible for the brutal beating of San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow at Dodger Stadium on opening day-which included hundreds of billboards in Los Angeles -is finally bearing fruit, according to the Los Angeles Times," shared Glenn Davis at Sports Grid. "No apparent news on the other suspect, but certainly, if the man taken into custody today is who the police think he is, today's is a good piece of news." "Admit it, you had probably begun to wonder if the Los Angeles Police Department would ever nab the two suspects who had brutally beaten Giants fan Bryan Stow on opening day," wrote Steve Dilbeck on a Los Angeles Times blog. "Yet it should spark hope for the Stow family, and all those in Los Angeles and elsewhere pained and embarrassed by this crime, that these criminals will be brought to justice." Others pointed out that while the arrest was positive, it would still not help the victim who was still recovering. "Better news would be that Stow's alleged attacker rolls over on his partner, and both men end up in police custody. Best news would be that Stow recovers and gets to see these two heartless [expletive] sentenced to lengthy prison terms for their senseless attack," declared The Last Angry Fan. The Rapture Fizzles Once the world was still there after Camping's May 21 rapture prediction, some bloggers reveled in the radio evangelist's error. "As I'm writing this, the rapture after party is winding down, and the birds are singing outside," celebrated Alex at Reason and Liberty Central. "Yet life is not good for the fundies Harold Camping defrauded...Because of those delusions, people quit jobs, wasted their last money, and what is worst, ruined their kids' social lives." "Harold Camping is responsible for what he says," posted Diane at Preserve Our Constitutional Freedom Now. "He should be ashamed of himself for all this. That's why he's in seclusion. But, his final judgment is not up to me or anyone else. He has to face God Almighty whenever that day comes for him." There were differences about how to feel about those followers who worked so hard to spread Camping's prediction. "I don't feel sorry for people who quit their jobs, packed their cars and left to be with Camping for the rapture. They are fools," shared The Cajun Tomato. "Christianity's holy text, The Bible, warns against false prophets in the final days...If a Christian minister defies the teachings of their religion's holy text you might want to keep your job, your house, your money, your dignity, etc." "I hope Harold Camping and those who believed in him recover well," admitted sod2008 at Spirited Abductions. "We are facing Earth's process of change ... many are feeling it and actually wanting this process to come and go." YouTube A conversation between two of cable TV's most popular personalities and semi-regular sparring partners was the biggest news draw on YouTube last week. On May 16, comedian and host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, Jon Stewart, was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly on his Fox News show, The O'Reilly Factor. In the first part of the video, Stewart and O'Reilly discussed the recent controversy over the White House's decision to invite rapper Common to a poetry event. Stewart claimed that Fox News was manufacturing a controversy while O'Reilly insisted that the inclusion of Common showed bad judgment on the part of the White House, citing what critics say are the rapper's controversial lyrics and statements about crime.
In part two, the conversation continues and Stewart criticizes the lack of diversity of opinion on the Fox News cable channel.
The New Media Index is a weekly report that captures the leading commentary of blogs and social media sites focused on news and compares those subjects to that of the mainstream press. PEJ's New Media Index is a companion to its weekly News Coverage Index. Blogs and other new media are an important part of creating today's news information narrative and in shaping the way Americans interact with the news. The expansion of online blogs and other social media sites has allowed news-consumers and others outside the mainstream press to have more of a role in agenda setting, dissemination and interpretation. PEJ aims to find out what subjects in the national news the online sites focus on, and how that compared with the narrative in the traditional press. A prominent Web tracking site Icerocket, which monitors millions of blogs, uses the links to articles embedded on these sites as a proxy for determining what these subjects are. Using this tracking process as a base, PEJ staff compiles the lists of links weekday each day. They capture the top five linked-to stories on each list (25 stories each week), and reads, watches or listens to these posts and conducts a content analysis of their subject matter, just as it does for the mainstream press in its weekly News Coverage Index. It follows the same coding methodology as that of the NCI. Note: When the NMI was launched in January 2009, another web-tracking site Technorati was similarly monitoring blogs and social media. PEJ originally captured both Technorati's and Icerocket's daily aggregation. In recent months, though, this component of Technorati's site has been down with no indication of when it might resume. The priorities of the bloggers are measured in terms of percentage of links. Each time a news blog or social media Web page adds a link to its site directing its readers to a news story, it suggests that the author of the blog places at least some importance on the content of that article. The user may or may not agree with the contents of the article, but they feel it is important enough to draw the reader's attention to it. PEJ measures the topics that are of most interest to bloggers by compiling the quantitative information on links and analyzing the results. For the examination of the links from Twitter, PEJ staff monitors the tracking site Tweetmeme. Similar to Icerocket, Tweetmeme measures the number of times a link to a particular story or blog post is tweeted and retweeted. Then, as we do with Icerocket, PEJ captures the five most popular linked-to pages each weekday under the heading of "news" as determined by Tweetmeme's method of categorization. And as with the other data provided in the NMI, the top stories are determined in terms of percentage of links. (One minor difference is that Tweetmeme offers the top links over the prior 24 hours while the list used on Icerocket offers the top links over the previous 48 hours.) The Project also tracks the most popular news videos on YouTube each week. *For the sake of authenticity, PEJ has a policy of not correcting misspellings or grammatical errors that appear in direct quotes from blog postings. Note: PEJ's weekly News Coverage Index includes Sunday newspapers while the New Media Index is Monday through Friday.
From May 23-May 29, the Midwest tornado and subsequent storms accounted for 22% of the newshole as measured by PEJ’s weekly News Coverage Index. Previously the biggest weather week since PEJ began tracking news in January 2007 was September 1-7, 2008, when Hurricanes Hanna and Gustav combined to fill 20% of the newshole. Last week’s scenes of death and destruction were primarily conveyed to U.S. citizens on television news. The story accounted for nearly one-half (46%) of the network news airtime studied last week; it filled more than one-third (38%) on cable news. In a year of dramatic newsmaking events at home and abroad, the spring of 2011 has been marked by a series of violent storms ravaging the Midwest and South. Indeed, this makes the fifth time in the past seven weeks that destructive weather has finished among the top five stories. If weather led the news, politics played a central role in the second and third biggest stories last week. The economy was the No. 2 story, filling 12% of the newshole studied, and much of that coverage focused on a Democratic victory in a special congressional election in western New York widely viewed as a referendum on Republican budget priorities, particularly the party’s plans for reforming Medicare. The No. 3 story (9%) was the 2012 presidential election season, fueled in good measure by news about two former GOP governors. One, Tim Pawlenty, made news by entering the race. Another, Sarah Palin, created buzz by buying a home in Arizona and launching a bus tour—heightening speculation that she too might join the Republican field. For the week, Palin, with her knack for attracting press attention, finished as the fourth biggest newsmaker. After getting off to a somewhat slow news start in 2011—particularly when compared to the presidential campaign four years earlier—coverage of next year’s election has recently picked up significant momentum. In the past six weeks, the campaign has filled 8% of the newshole, behind only the death of bin Laden (17%) and the economy (10%). The fourth and fifth biggest stories of last week were about the Middle East. The conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians was the No. 4 story, at 5% of the newshole. And the continuing violence and unrest in the Arab world (No. 5) also filled 5% of the newshole, as NATO forces intensified airstrikes in Libya. A Terrifying Twister Television’s visceral power to convey the magnitude and scope of a disaster like the one that struck Joplin was on full display last week. While the story was the top news event in four of the five media sectors studied by PEJ, the level of coverage online (12%) and in newspapers (11%) was a fraction of what network and cable news devoted to the storm—a sign that to at least some degree, the medium influences the message. One day after the tornado struck, ABC anchor Diane Sawyer began the May 23 newscast by walking through piles of rubble in stricken Joplin, with the network’s special report labeled, “Direct Hit: An American Tragedy in Joplin.”
Later in the broadcast, viewers saw a
chilling homemade video of the approaching twister as an unidentified voice
declared, “There it is, there it is. Oh gosh, that is a monster tornado.” The
sky then darkened ominously until the picture turned completely black amid the
haunting sounds of people screaming.
Like any disaster of this scale, the event quickly spawned a number of storylines. One was the search for survivors and the quick pivot toward eventual recovery. Speaking on the May 24 edition of the NBC Today show, Joplin Mayor Mike Woolston, acknowledged that, “We don’t really have an idea how many [people] are unaccounted for.” But he vowed that “as difficult as it is, you just take one day at a time. And we will recover and we will rebuild.” The next day on CNN, John King was documenting one family’s tragedy and growing frustration in trying to confirm the death of their 12-year-old son.
“A neighbor told them he saw
the body and he told them their son is dead [and] that he stood over the body
and waited until an ambulance took it away,” King stated. “But they desperately
want to get to the morgue….Three days in a row, they have tried to get down in
the morgue, and they have been told they can't do that. So they tried to bring
us inside today, hoping that maybe some media attention would help them.”
And some stories, such as this Associated Press account late in the week, focused on the disaster’s grim statistics: “The death toll from the massive tornado that devastated Joplin, Mo., reached 132 Friday, a city spokeswoman said...All of the numbers describing Sunday's storm are nothing short of numbing. The tornado—an EF5 monster packing 200 mph winds—was the nation's deadliest single twister in more than six decades. More than 900 people were injured.” Last week’s coverage reinforced the sense that this has been a season of unusually violent and headline-generating storms. During the week of April 25-May 1, a string of tornadoes that reportedly killed more than 300 people, striking Alabama the hardest, was the No. 1 story at 15% of the newshole. Some media reports suggests that this spring’s particularly volatile weather may be related to a number of factors—ranging from a strong La Nina pattern to warm air lingering in the Arctic to a generally warming planet. Politics: Economic and Presidential News of the economy was the No. 1 story last week in radio (19%), and it was an election result that triggered much of last week’s coverage. Democrat Kathy Hochul’s congressional win over Republican Jane Corwin in a GOP leaning district in New York was interpreted largely through the prism of the two party’s divergent plans for tackling the deficit—particularly as it applied to Medicare. “After their plan to privatize Medicare helped a Democrat win a vacant New York congressional seat, House Republicans are vowing to prevent the 2012 election from becoming a referendum on the proposal,” stated a Bloomberg News story posted on Google News. “Democrat Kathy Hochul scored an upset in a traditionally Republican western New York district May 24 after hammering opponent Jane Corwin for endorsing the Medicare plan approved by almost all House Republicans…In a March 4-7 Bloomberg National Poll, a Medicare voucher plan was opposed by 54 percent of respondents compared with 40 percent supporting it.” The 2012 presidential campaign also generated the most attention last week in the two media sectors featuring the ideological talk shows, cable news (15%) and radio (14%). Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, a man some in the media have dubbed as charismatically challenged, made news by announcing his entry into the GOP field on May 23. But by week’s end, signs that Sarah Palin might be considering a run began attracting the political press corps. A May 26 Wall Street Journal story reported that Palin “bought a roughly 8,000-square-foot home in North Scottsdale, Ariz., for $1.695 million,” characterizing that as one of a “series of recent moves” that “have amped up speculation…that she is preparing for a White House bid.” The story also noted that Palin had recently rehired to two aides and that a full length feature film focused on her career as Alaska governor was close to completion. As Palin proved last week, the mere possibility that she might run for the White House is enough to generate significant media interest. The Middle East The Israeli-Palestinian situation fell by more than half from the attention received from the week before, but it remained one of the top stories. The seemingly intractable dispute accounted for 5% of the newshole from May 23-29, down from 11% the previous week when coverage was driven by President Obama’s speech on the subject. Last week, the big newsmaker was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s well-received speech to Congress, one that suggested some differences between the U.S. and Israeli administrations on how to advance the peace process. The continuing fighting in Libya was one of the main storylines in the ongoing Mideast turmoil coverage (5%). But some of that news also focused on a significant event in Egypt, the decision to charge former President Hosni Mubarak for killing protestors during the upheaval in that country earlier in the year.
Newsmakers of the Week President Obama was the leading figure in the news from May 23-29, registering as a dominant newsmaker in 6% of the week’s stories—a total that was down significantly from 11% the previous week. (In order to register as a dominant newsmaker, a person must be featured in at least 50% of a story.) The next leading newsmakers (at 2%) were Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ratko Mladic, the former Serbian general arrested and charged last week in connection with war crimes and atrocities. The fourth leading newsmaker was Sarah Palin (2%) followed closely at 1% by Tim Pawlenty and Jared Loughner, the man charged in the Tucson shooting spree who was found incompetent to stand trial last week. 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 1,000 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
Only a small percentage of the conversation was neutral as most users shared strong opinions about the difficult issues involved in the peace process. In the seven days following Obama's speech, fully 55% of the conversation on blogs on the issue has been in favor of Israel and opposed to a move to the 1967 borders, while 19% has been in favor of the Palestinians and the creation of an independent state. About a quarter, 27%, was neutral. On Twitter and Facebook, the tone of conversation was similar with 60% pro-Israel compared to 20% pro-Palestinian and 20% neutral. These are the results of a special edition of the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, utilizing computer technology from Crimson Hexagon. Based on more than 48,000 blog posts and 430,000 posts on Twitter or Facebook, this report goes beyond the normal methodology of PEJ's index of new media to look at the specific themes and tone of the online conversation related to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Social media users who sided with Israel criticized Obama for not backing the U.S. ally strongly enough and consequently not upholding American values. Many used phrases suggesting Obama had "thrown Israel under the bus" or "stabbed Israel in the back." Supporters of the Palestinians were mostly critical of Israel's actions and declared that Israel continues to be an occupying power backed by the U.S. Some were critical of Obama for backing Israel too strongly and not supporting Palestinians they saw as fighting against colonization. Only about a quarter of the conversation identified on blogs, Twitter, and Facebook on the subject was neutral. This was slightly less than the 28% found in a PEJ analysis of social media regarding the 2010 controversy over the "Ground Zero" Mosque using Crimson Hexagon. It was significantly less than an analysis of election night 2010 where 41% of the messages on Twitter were "neutral." Other analysis of social media debates, in testing the coding software, also found higher levels of neural discussion. In those cases, social media were used more often to pass along straightforward news accounts. This past week, though, in talking about this most recent discussion of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, social media users focused more on expressions of opinion. The pro-Israeli tone of conversation also stayed relatively constant throughout the week examined. On blogs, the ratio of support for Israel over the Palestinians was virtually the same on May 19, the day of Obama's speech (55% to 19%), as it was on May 25 (54% to 20%). On Twitter and Facebook, there was a small change over time away from the pro-Israel position, but not enough to see a significant change in the overall makeup of the conversation. On May 19, 62% of the discussion was pro-Israel compared to 20% pro-Palestinian, while a week later the makeup was 54% to 23%. Pro-Israeli Posts Some users of social media expressed clear and straightforward support for Israel. "We must stand with Israel," tweeted Vicki Shroyer. "When we say never again. We mean never again. Israel always reserves the right to defend itself," added Adriana RM.* A few were critical of Palestinians. "Many many younger Palestinians have been indoctrinated to think Israel is horror while Hamas practices terror everyday," declared Anna Teresa Arnold. Some bloggers, who have more space to expand on their thoughts than Twitter users, explained why they felt the U.S. needed to maintain a strong alliance. "There are many who believe that prosperity in the United States since the end of World War II is undeniably tied to our love for Israel," wrote Bill Steensland. "We have been a consistent blessing for the Jews who returned to their land and became a nation once again in 1948. If that is true, and if we walk away from our love of Israel, our prosperity will decline as does our love for Israel." But most of all those in favor of Israel's position criticized Obama's declaration of land swaps and a return to earlier borders. Many contended the president was betraying Israel. "Obama promised 2 stand w/ Muslims when the political winds turn ugly so are we really surprised when he knifes Israel in the back?" tweeted Glen Spicer. "Israel's Prime Minister gives Obama a straight up no on moving their borders! Why should Israel have to make sacrifices for peace in the middle east when they are not the problem?" asked Alex Andronicos on Facebook. "dear israel: obama does NOT speak for most americans with regard to your country's safety and future," tweeted Brooks Bayne. "I watched in horror Obama's speech yesterday where he literally threw Israel to the Middle Eastern wolves encircling her," wrote Terresa Monroe-Hamilton on the blog New Zeal. "Our President has betrayed our largest, closest and last real ally - Israel... Israel's enemies would literally be able to drive her into the sea as they have threatened for so long. Obama sided with the Palestinians, but Americans don't and they don't side with their President. We are sickened by his weakness and by his treachery." Even on Twitter, a platform on which users often pass along new information by linking to breaking news stories, many of the links were to stories with opinionated headlines rather than neutral statements of fact. Many highlighted an Associated Press story by retweeting the message: "Romney: Obama ‘threw Israel under the bus' \n (AP)\n: AP." Others linked to a Reuters newsflash: "Israel cannot return to "the indefensible 1967 line" - Netanyahu." Pro-Palestinian Posts Most of those who supported the Palestinian viewpoint did not so much defend Obama's speech as criticize Israel's past actions and the role the U.S. played. "Bibi [Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] also forgot to mention how many Gazan civilians the Israeli army killed after the 2005 withdrawal," tweeted Lisa Goldman after Netanyahu spoke to a joint meeting of Congress. "US & Israeli Shared values: torture, extra-judicial killings, occupation, war, nuclear proliferation, settler-colonialism, etc." added Ali Abunimah. "The US provided Israel with 670 MILLION weapons between 2000-2009 in order to maintain occupation & colonization," charged Brian, aka The Brinos. "For decades the Israelis have played for time to create irreversible facts on the ground that would help make the occupation permanent," argued Stuart Littlewood on Redress Information & Analysis. "It seems he's pushing for another dragged-out peace process to buy Israel even more time to complete its Greater Israel expansion programme." Like many of the supporters of Israel, some of those that backed the Palestinians criticized Obama, but for very different reasons. "America's short- and long-term interests in the region have always been control of oil resources, securing US profits, and defending Israel," wrote Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad on the Al Jazeera web site. "Until ‘winds of change' blow on these interests, the position of the United States as the most powerful anti-democratic force in the Arab World will remain the same, Emperor Obama's speeches notwithstanding." And a few tried to rebut criticism of Obama from conservatives by comparing his policies to those of Republican presidents. "With all the hysteria, blather, and ahistorical idiocy in the political rightnutosphere over Barack Obama supposedly ‘throwing Israel under the bus' for, essentially, reiterating what U.S. policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian situation has been for decades, you'd think that Republicans were pristine when it comes to being ‘pro-Israel'," explained lowkell at Blue Virginia before describing conflicts between the U.S. and Israel over the past 30 years. "I also wanted to remind people of the good ol' days when Republican Presidents like Reagan, Bush and Bush, were busy ‘throwing Israel under the bus.'" About This Report This special edition of the NMI adds software technology from Crimson Hexagon to PEJ's ongoing tracking of most linked-to news stories in social media. Using this software, the Project can examine a much larger mix of social media conversation. To see the results of PEJ's normal NMI methodology for the week of May 16-20, click here. According to Crimson Hexagon: "Our technology analyzes the entire social internet (blog posts, forum messages, Tweets, etc.) by identifying statistical patterns in the words used to express opinions on different topics." Information on the tool itself can be found at http://www.crimsonhexagon.com/ and the in depth methodologies can be found here http://www.crimsonhexagon.com/products/whitepapers/. The time frame for the analysis is May 19-25, 2011, which is different than the normal NMI week, Monday through Friday. For the analysis of blogs, Twitter and Facebook, PEJ used the following list of keywords in a Boolean search to narrow the universe to relevant posts: Israel OR Israeli OR Palestine OR Palestinian *For the sake of authenticity, PEJ has a policy of not correcting misspellings or grammatical errors that appear in direct quotes from blog postings.
From May 16-22, the No. 1 story (at 15%) was the May 15 arrest of International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn on rape charges, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The stunning news about the man the media quickly dubbed “DSK” had news organizations chronicling every bounce in his fall from grace. With Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee opting out of the race and Newt Gingrich getting in, the presidential campaign was the No. 3 story, accounting for 11% of the newshole and reaching double digits for the first time. As usual, it received more play on cable (24%) and radio (20%), two sectors where political debate and opinion tend to dominate. The No. 2 story was about an international situation, but it also took on domestic political overtones. Coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (11%) was marked by President Obama’s May 19 speech on the Mideast that was quickly condemned by Republicans—thus setting up one of the foreign policy battles for 2012. Last week marked the most media attention to the Israel-Palestine situation since May 31-June 6, 2010, when Israel’s interdiction of a flotilla headed toward Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of nine people, filled 13% of the newshole. The week’s fourth-biggest story was the U.S. economy (9%), with the media continuing to monitor the debate in Washington over spending, triggered anew by the federal government officially hitting its debt limit on Tuesday. Finally, the death of Osama bin Laden continued to make news at 7% of the newshole. But it is quickly falling off the media map. One week earlier, the subject had filled 24% of the newshole, which was down dramatically from 69% three weeks ago. The 2012 Campaign: Two Departures and a Rocky Start
The
slow but steady ascent of the 2012 campaign in the media’s agenda can largely
be attributed to the winnowing down of the field of possible GOP contenders. Last
week’s election coverage focused on two Republican hopefuls who decided not to
run and one who recently jumped in. As for that candidate, former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich, it was a rocky stumble—or series of
stumbles—into the race.
On Monday, the media were still parsing through the implications of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee’s decision not to run for president. Huckabee announced live on his May 14 Fox News Channel program that he would not run, despite most polls showing him with about a quarter of the Republican vote. ABC’s Jonathan Karl on Good Morning America suggested that the announcement brings the Republican Party back to square one: “Huckabee’s decision takes a big-name Republican out of the running and leaves the Republicans exactly where they have been—without a clear choice to take on Barack Obama.” Karl described the Republican field as one “crowded with candidates, and problems.” Also on Monday, another contender, developer Donald Trump—who had generated considerable media attention for his blunt policy pronouncements and questioning of Obama’s citizenship—announced he would not run, prompting media outlets to weave in some variation of “you’re fired” into their leads. That was a reference to Trump’s NBC reality TV program, The Apprentice.
Gingrich,
another candidate with a knack for making news, formally entered the race with
a Twitter announcement and Youtube video on May 11. And two days later, he raised
eyebrows in a speech where he derided Barack Obama as a “food stamp president.”
It was one thing for Gingrich to anger critics on the left. But on May 15, in an interview with David Gregory on NBC’s Meet the Press, he offended the GOP base by criticizing the Medicare overhaul advocated by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, as “right-wing social engineering.” MSNBC’s liberal host Rachel Maddow offered her own view of the consequences on her May 17 program: “Newt Gingrich has been, this week, all but thrown out of the Republican Party, let alone the list of credible presidential contenders after he criticized the Paul Ryan ‘kill Medicare’ plan.” After receiving flack from the right, Gingrich backpedaled, even calling Ryan to apologize. Nevertheless, some damage was done, and Gingrich’s words served as a warning to other GOP contenders. The Washington Post’s Chris Cilizza, in a May 22 post on his Washington Post blog, wrote “For Republicans running for president in 2012, there’s a new political reality: Support Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan—or else.” Gingrich’s rough opening fed into what had already been part of the media narrative about the former Speaker—that he was, at times, unpredictable and undisciplined. On May 17, NBC anchor Brian Williams pointed out that “just two days ago on Meet the Press with David Gregory [Gingrich said] “the central test he’s going to face in the 2012 campaign will be whether or not he has the discipline and the judgment to be president. Well, in just the last 48 hours, it’s been a rough go, a tough rollout for Mr. Gingrich.” Obama’s Speech on the Mideast Last week’s coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian issue was triggered by a May 19 Obama speech from the State Department on the changes rippling through the Arab world. And it was his statement on the 1967 Israeli borders that got everyone’s attention. Obama stated that those were the borders that should be the basis of an Israel-Palestine deal. Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was to visit the United States the following day, immediately made news by protesting, saying such an arrangement would render Israel “indefensible.” The speech was also denounced by several prominent Republicans, including potential presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, as well as declared candidate Newt Gingrich. On May 20, Obama and Netanyahu met at the White House in what appeared to be a strained affair. Obama’s remarks also appeared to anger many commentators on the right. “We have had a major shift in American foreign policy, and it is not a good one,” said Sean Hannity on his May 19 radio broadcast. Some journalists pointed to the domestic political implications of the speech and the strained meeting of the two leaders. “It is a remarkable public airing of a disagreement among friends; it immediately rippled through our domestic politics as well,” said John King on CNN that Friday. The Strauss-Kahn Arrest The breaking news event that generated the most attention last week was the arrest of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on May 15. Strauss-Kahn found himself inundated by cameras and microphones as he was shuttled from the airport to the court room, then to the city jail and finally house arrest. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, on charges of trying to rape a hotel maid, became a cautionary tale of how the mighty have fallen, as the media chronicled his detainment, denial of bail, imprisonment on Rikers Island, and ultimately his resignation from the IMF toward the end of the week. As the New York Times put it on May 20, “A week ago, Dominique Strauss-Kahn was a man of international stature and influence. By Friday, he had become something of a pariah, turned away from the Upper East Side luxury building he sought to inhabit and stuck on Rikers Island.” The media explored other themes as they covered the disgraced French leader, including the impact on French politics, the seedier aspects of the culture at the global development institution, and the future leadership of the IMF. One NPR segment from May 19 summarized the feelings of many in non-Western countries that the task of running the IMF should not necessarily go to a European. “They say the West no longer dominates the global economy the way it once did, and allowing Europe to dominate the Fund no longer reflects reality,” the report stated.
Newsmakers of
the Week Dominique Strauss-Kahn found himself in the unwelcome position of being the top newsmaker in the week of May 16-22, as he appeared as a dominant newsmaker in 12% of all stories studied by PEJ. (To be a dominant newsmaker, 50% of the story must be about that person). It was enough coverage to surpass that of Barack Obama, himself the focus of 11% of stories in a week that contained a major speech on the Middle East. (That coverage was up from 8% the week before). Two other newsmakers—Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver—drew media attention for the end of their high-profile marriage, which fell apart after the former governor admitted to fathering a child with the couple’s housekeeper about 14 years ago. Schwarzenegger was the No. 3 newsmaker last week, featuring prominently in 5% of stories, and Shriver, a prominent member of the Kennedy clan, was No. 5 (2% of stories). Finally, at No. 4, was Newt Gingrich, the Republican candidate for president who perhaps did more last week to stall his campaign than to advance it. He was the focus of 4% of stories studied. 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 1,000 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. Jesse Holcomb of PEJ
For the week of May 9-13, over three-quarters, 81%, of the news links on blogs were about either the breakup of Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger (41%) or the death of Osama bin Laden (40%), according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The conversation about bin Laden's death largely focused on the political fallout from the May 1 raid in Pakistan, with bloggers arguing over which president-George W. Bush or Barack Obama-deserved credit for killing the terrorist. This has been an ongoing debate among bloggers and while in earlier weeks voices were pretty evenly divided, this past week it was those crediting Bush for the bin Laden killing who seemed to lead the conversation. Two the top five YouTube videos last week also related to the death of bin Laden. Gaining just as much of the spotlight, though, was the Shriver-Schwarzenegger split. Celebrity bloggers shared their level of surprise over the breakup while political blogs looked at the decision in the light of their careers. Osama bin Laden Attention to bin Laden's killing decreased by half last week-following a week when it dominated with 80% of news links-and the conversation took on a more singular focus: which president deserved credit. A May 10 Los Angeles Times article about how bin Laden's death is now part of Obama's 2012 campaign message sparked a major response from conservative bloggers who said that Obama does not deserve to take credit for killing bin Laden. "You see, Bush deserves credit," wrote Ray Titus at Buyer Behaviour, "For his guts and his conviction. A li'l over half of America knows that. Its left for the rest now to admit and admire. I sure hope that happens."* "Can our Commander in Chief get any more crass than using the SEAL killing of bin Laden as a punch line to raise campaign cash?" asked Bart DePalma on Citizen Pamphleteer. "With bin Laden out of the way, the president can (somewhat rightly) claim he is a tough guy like his predecessor (not really) although he hasn't given the previous president any credit for putting him in the position to move on bin Laden (or for the Surge in Iraq, either)," wrote Harrison at Capitol Commentary. Other bloggers pulled up old stories to make their points. Some argued that Bush did not deserve credit for bin Laden's killing, and cited a 2006 New York Times article that discussed the closing of a CIA unit focused on capturing bin Laden at that time. "This is why George Bush cannot take credit for the killing all OSama [sic] bin Laden and why he didn't show up at ground zero," wrote Lee Gaddies. "Bush apologists need his administration's torture program to be vindicated in order to take some credit for a manhunt they abandoned in 2006, before the Obama administration took it up again," wrote Washington Post blogger Adam Serwer. One side conversation built off the question of whether his death was a hoax. Many cited a 2001 Fox News article reporting that bin Laden was already dead at that point. "No one will notice that those who fabricated the story forgot to show the kidney dialysis machine that, somehow, kept bin Laden alive for a decade," wrote Paul Craig Roberts at Global Research, "No doctors were on the premises." Several other bloggers posted Roberts' piece in full. "So do I believe the US government version? Definitely not. Do I believe Bin Laden is dead? The answer is still yes. Do I believe it happened just a week or so ago? I have no idea," wrote Harriet Penhey. These conspiracy theorists had something of an international flavor as well. Bloggers wrote in German, French, Spanish, Finnish and Latvian. Shriver-Schwarzenegger Split The bloggers who opined on the dissolving of Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger's marriage were mostly celebrity blogs that used the word "shocked"-even when they weren't. But political blogs dove in as well. Celebrity bloggers, who tend to focus on the ins-and-outs of Hollywood personalities, movies, television, and rumors, leapt on the story quickly. "I'm a bit surprised by the news but the more I think about it, it's not really shocking at all. Expect this breaking story to blow up over the next few days, it's a big one!" wrote Popbytes. "Is anyone really shocked by this announcement?" wrote DivaJulia at Dipped in Cream. "I am actually shocked the marriage lasted this long," countered Crazy Days and Nights, "They never seemed like a good match, but there must have been something. I think the past few years though they must have been counting the days until the end of his term so they could end the marriage. I don't think it is a coincidence that his term ends and Maria is out the door a few months later." "Definitely didn't see this one coming," said My Buzz Worthy. Political bloggers joined in as well, focusing more on connections to their two careers. "But both Shriver and Schwarzenegger appeared headed in separate directions after his governorship ended earlier this year, according to reports-Shriver wants to get back into journalism and Schwarzenegger is eager to jump back into acting," wrote Jordan Fabian on The Hill's blog. "While Shriver's next career step is unclear, her husband, now 63, has been exploring movie roles again," wrote the Washington Post's Reliable Source. "I have long wondered what Shriver saw in Schwarzenegger and why she stayed with him," wrote a liberal blogger, Pamela Leavey at The Democratic Daily, "Now it seems that after 25 years she's saying enough is enough. Something tellls me that with Shriver free from the constraints of her marriage to Republican Schwarzenegger, we'll start to see some great things from Maria." And a conservative blogger had a differing opinion. "I for one hope that they can get over their problems," wrote Righty64 at Right View from the Left Coast, "If they can resolve their problems and remain a married couple, that tops any professional and or political accomplishments." "No word on what political differences caused it. Good riddance," wrote Tarpon's Swamp. And a handful of bloggers could not help but draw allusions to Schwarzenegger's movie career. "There was no truth to the rumor that Arnold was quoted as saying, "I'LL BE BAACK," wrote Scared Monkeys. The Rest of the News on Blogs Rounding out the top six on blogs for the week included a discussion about an executive order from the president that could make corporate spending public (5%) in third place. At fourth, there was talk about how the Presbyterian church voted to allow the ordination of gay and lesbian ministers and lay leaders (3%). And tied for fifth place at 3% were two stories: one on Wikileaks cables that showed a race to carve up Arctic resources and the other about antiabortion measures flooding state legislatures. Twitter focused on technology-related topics and the top story for the week was about the purchase of a major web service.
People on Twitter reacted to two stories about the Microsoft purchase, from Engaget and TechCrunch, which both focused on the price of the $8.5 billion purchase. They mostly bemoaned the acquisition, decrying Microsoft. "Dear Microsoft, please do not screw up Skype. Love Me," wrote Michael Doornbos. "great...another ruined program," tweeted Brian Zahare. "The Ballmer Days Are Over," tweeted sardire, referring to Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft. Answering the question TechCrunch posed, "Is Microsoft about to overpay for Skype?" one Twitterer, Drew Izzo, responded, "yes. They are." "Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion!.. what a bunch of idiots! I downloaded it for free!" quipped RevRunJnr. The No. 2 story on Twitter (9%) was also tech-related: A Mashable piece with screenshots of 30 celebrities' first tweets. Twitter users generally retweeted a link to the images. And in third place with 6% was links to a Mashable article on a PEJ study about where people go for news online. The article focused on how Facebook provided more links to news sites than Twitter. Wrapping up the top five topics were a Mashable story about favorite gadgets (6%) and another Mashable article at (5%) about a scam that sent fake Google Music invites. YouTube Three of the top five most-viewed news video on YouTube last week focused on President Obama. The most-viewed video shows Obama talking at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington D.C. on April 30. During his speech, where it is customary for the president to roast his friends and foes alike, Obama took shots at the birther movement, Donald Trump, National Public Radio, and potential GOP presidential candidates. He then ended with serious issues where he thanked the troops for their service, mentioned the people affected by the deadly tornadoes that ripped through the South, and recognized journalists who lost their lives while covering the news. The No. 3 and No. 5 videos are also of the president addressing the country, but in a very different context. The videos show President Obama addressing the nation on May 1 to announce that the United States has killed Osama bin Laden.
The New Media Index is a weekly report that captures the leading commentary of blogs and social media sites focused on news and compares those subjects to that of the mainstream press. PEJ's New Media Index is a companion to its weekly News Coverage Index. Blogs and other new media are an important part of creating today's news information narrative and in shaping the way Americans interact with the news. The expansion of online blogs and other social media sites has allowed news-consumers and others outside the mainstream press to have more of a role in agenda setting, dissemination and interpretation. PEJ aims to find out what subjects in the national news the online sites focus on, and how that compared with the narrative in the traditional press. A prominent Web tracking site Icerocket, which monitors millions of blogs, uses the links to articles embedded on these sites as a proxy for determining what these subjects are. Using this tracking process as a base, PEJ staff compiles the lists of links weekday each day. They capture the top five linked-to stories on each list (25 stories each week), and reads, watches or listens to these posts and conducts a content analysis of their subject matter, just as it does for the mainstream press in its weekly News Coverage Index. It follows the same coding methodology as that of the NCI. Note: When the NMI was launched in January 2009, another web-tracking site Technorati was similarly monitoring blogs and social media. PEJ originally captured both Technorati's and Icerocket's daily aggregation. In recent months, though, this component of Technorati's site has been down with no indication of when it might resume. The priorities of the bloggers are measured in terms of percentage of links. Each time a news blog or social media Web page adds a link to its site directing its readers to a news story, it suggests that the author of the blog places at least some importance on the content of that article. The user may or may not agree with the contents of the article, but they feel it is important enough to draw the reader's attention to it. PEJ measures the topics that are of most interest to bloggers by compiling the quantitative information on links and analyzing the results. For the examination of the links from Twitter, PEJ staff monitors the tracking site Tweetmeme. Similar to Icerocket, Tweetmeme measures the number of times a link to a particular story or blog post is tweeted and retweeted. Then, as we do with Icerocket, PEJ captures the five most popular linked-to pages each weekday under the heading of "news" as determined by Tweetmeme's method of categorization. And as with the other data provided in the NMI, the top stories are determined in terms of percentage of links. (One minor difference is that Tweetmeme offers the top links over the prior 24 hours while the list used on Icerocket offers the top links over the previous 48 hours.) The Project also tracks the most popular news videos on YouTube each week. *For the sake of authenticity, PEJ has a policy of not correcting misspellings or grammatical errors that appear in direct quotes from blog postings. Note: PEJ's weekly News Coverage Index includes Sunday newspapers while the New Media Index is Monday through Friday.
By Emily Guskin and Sovini Tan, PEJ
From May 9-15, the bin Laden saga filled 24% of the newshole, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. That represents a drop off of nearly two thirds from the previous week (69%), as measured by PEJ’s weekly News Coverage Index, but it was still nearly triple the attention to any other story. A week earlier, the bin Laden story was the biggest ever measured in a single week by PEJ, since it began this research in January 2007. The bin Laden saga generated the most coverage last week on cable news—41% of the airtime studied. But there were dramatic differences among the three major channels. While CNN devoted about two-thirds of its airtime (65%) to the subject, that dropped to about one-third (35%) on MSNBC. Fox meanwhile, devoted only one-fifth of its newshole (20%) to bin Laden. Our data from the last few years reveals that cable news, particularly MSNBC and Fox, tends to focus on topics about which there is more inherent ideological divide. Aside from the drop in overall coverage, there were significant changes in how the story was covered last week. The story line that had stood out above all others the first week after the raid, reconstructing what happened at bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad Pakistan, accounted for less than 10% of the coverage after representing more than one-third the week before. Now, in week two following the raid, several other bin Laden-related themes began to take over the media narrative from May 9-15. One was the implication of bin Laden’s killing on worldwide terrorism, which accounted for 23% of the overall coverage. Another was the growing politicization of the story as partisans sparred over whether George Bush or Barack Obama deserved credit for the mission. After filling 15% the first week, it grew to 21% last week. The third growing story line was Pakistan, with an emerging media portrait of the country as an unreliable, or perhaps even duplicitous, U.S. ally. It also accounted for 21% of the bin Laden coverage.
The bin Laden story continued to dwarf
the economy and other news, but some of these other subjects were beginning to come
back. The week’s No. 2 story, at 9%, was the U.S. economy, with House Speaker
John Boehner getting attention by declaring that Republicans would not agree to
raise the debt ceiling without major spending cuts. A related subject, gas
prices, accounted for another 4% as energy executives appeared before Congress
last week amid calls to end oil company tax breaks.
Next, also at 9%, was a natural disaster—the Mississippi River flooding threatening Southern communities, most notably Memphis Tennessee. Only two weeks earlier, another such disaster, the tornadoes that ripped through the Southeast, was the top story at 15% of the newshole. The fourth-biggest story (8%) was the 2012 presidential race, as Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul entered the GOP fray and Mike Huckabee opted out of another run. That was followed, at 7%, by the continued turmoil in the Mideast, where violence in Syria and Libya generated the most attention. This represents a major drop off, however. In the first three months of 2011, the Mideast unrest filled 25% of the coverage studied by PEJ’s News Coverage Index. The bin Laden saga: Politics, Pakistan and Possible Successors With less emphasis on mission post-mortems last week, the political fallout from the bin Laden raid gained more press attention, particularly on the ideological cable and radio talk radio programs. At its core, the political debate was between those wanting to credit George Bush’s emphasis on harsher interrogation techniques for developing the intelligence that led the killing of the al Qaeda leader and those offering kudos to Barack Obama and his approach. The talk show proxy for that debate seemed to be an argument over torture. On his May 9 show, conservative Fox News host Sean Hannity, said that “without enhanced interrogation, without rendition, without black sites, this day would not have been possible. So if we want more successful days like this, we must argue that the Obama policies were wrong and the Bush policies were right.” On liberal talker Ed Schultz’s May 12 MSNBC program, legal commentator Jonathan Turley attacked the policy of torture. “You know…I think much of the world is shocked by the debate that we‘re having,” he said. “This whole question of did it yield useable intelligence has long been rejected by the world and by the United States in treaties as a viable argument for torture.” But for the two principals who were the subject of the debate, there was no rancor or finger pointing last week. ABC News quoted Bush as saying he learned of bin Laden’s death during a phone call from Obama while at a restaurant and told his successor, “good call.” If who deserved political credit was a major storyline, a more worrisome narrative was just as big: the role of Pakistan and its relationship with the U.S. in the aftermath of the bin Laden raid. What emerged in that coverage was a picture of growing tension and maybe even animosity between the two countries.
On March 9, an AP
story reported on an event that was viewed by many as apparent retaliation by
Pakistan against the U.S. for conducting the raid on its soil without prior
notification. “Pakistani media have reported what they say is the name
of the CIA station chief in Islamabad—the second such potential outing of a
sensitive covert operative in six months, and one that comes with tensions
running high over the U.S. raid in Pakistan that killed al-Qaida chief Osama
bin Laden,” the story stated. That same night, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith told viewers about an angry speech delivered in Pakistan and aimed at the U.S. “In the wake of that raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistan’s prime minister today delivered up a doozy…a warning for the United States—‘don’t do that again,’” Smith said. “The prime minister talked tough in front of his own parliament.” At the same time, a New York Times story revealed the depth of U.S. mistrust toward Pakistan: “President Obama insisted that the assault force hunting down Osama bin Laden last week be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops, senior administration and military officials said Monday. The planning also illustrates how little the administration trusted the Pakistanis as they set up their operation. They also rejected a proposal to bring the Pakistanis in on the mission.” The third major thread last week, closely related, involved the impact on bin Laden’s death on the future of terrorism, and here, some of the speculation centered on who would succeed him. On the May 10 edition of CNN’s Situation Room, the focus was on al Qaeda’s No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri. “Can [al-Zawahiri] pick up the pieces? I think he can because he's a very talented man,” asserted Middle East analyst Fouad Ajami. “He's a very dangerous man. And to the extent that we have a public enemy number one, it used to be Osama bin Laden. We have to take Ayman Zawahiri seriously.” But it remains to be seen if any bin Laden successor can match his notoriety and ability to command the attention of the public and media. From May 9-15, bin Laden was tied as the No. 1 headline generator, appearing as a dominant newsmaker in 8% of the week’s overall stories—as much coverage as the U.S. President who approved the mission that killed him. The Rest of the Week’s News Coverage of the U.S. economy has certainly been diminished by the bin Laden story, but it jumped last week, up to 9% from 5% the previous week as concerns about the debt and deficit accounted for about 40% of the economic narrative. And it finished as the No. 1 topic (14% of the front-page newshole) in the media sector that traditionally gives it the most attention—newspapers. Right behind the economy last week was the Mississippi River flooding, also 9%, which proved to be the No. 1 story (19% of the airtime studied) in the sector that traditionally devotes the most attention to weather related disasters—network news. By the end of the week, the media were reporting on efforts to keep the dangerous floodwaters away from the population centers of Louisiana. The fourth biggest story (at 8%) was the 2012 presidential campaign, which matched its high water mark for coverage so far in 2011. The difference is in that week (April 18-24), campaign coverage was fueled by the sudden emergence of real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump, who this week announced he would not be running. Last week, however, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s entry into the race represented the big news. The continued violence in the Middle East was next, at 7%, and this marks the second consecutive week in which coverage has fallen into single digits—suggesting a story that dominated the first quarter of 2011 has moved well down the media radar screen. The Libyan civil war narrative seems to seesaw between gains for the rebel forces and gains for Muammar Gaddafi’s loyalists. Last week, the story was about military victories for the rebels and there were even some reports questioning whether Gaddafi was wounded, perhaps fatally so.
Newsmakers of the Week As the dominant newsmaker in 8% of the stories from May 9-15, Osama bin Laden’s coverage was well down from the previous week (28%). But he still managed to tie Obama, who also registered as a dominant newsmaker in 8% of the stories. (To be a dominant newsmaker, 50% of the story must be about that person). Most of the other top newsmakers were Republican politicians who made news for a variety of reasons. The No. 3 newsmaker was Newt Gingrich (2%), who threw his hat into the ring in the presidential race. He was followed by former Nevada Senator John Ensign (also 2%), who resigned his post after being entangled in a scandal involving an affair with the wife of a top aide. Last week, the Senate Ethics Committee concluded that Ensign might have been guilty of violating the law. The fifth biggest newsmaker (1% of the stories) was Texas Congressman and libertarian Ron Paul, a 2008 GOP presidential candidate who announced he would try again in 2012. 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 1,000 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
After a full week, social media continued to discuss bin Laden’s death in much the way PEJ found they had after the first three days. In a special report on May 5, PEJ reported that on blogs, the leading topic was a narrative account of the dramatic May 1 raid in Pakistan while humor and jokes constituted the largest response on Facebook and Twitter. For the rest of the week, those basic outlines remained, although attention to both those themes diminished. And while bloggers and Twitter and Facebook users were busy sharing and disseminating new developments in the basic narrative throughout the week, there was also substantial skepticism in the online platforms about whether the al Qaeda leader had actually been killed in the May 1 raid. In the blogosphere, attention was divided as eight different themes accounted for between 7% and 13% of the conversation. That included the question of whether President Bush or Obama deserved credit for the bin Laden mission, but also straight narrative accounts, the impact on the U.S. relationship with Pakistan and the effect on the U.S. economy. And about one-quarter of the bloggers’ conversation involved either fears of terrorist retaliation or conspiracy theories. On Twitter and Facebook, where posts are shorter and are often made up of instantaneous reactions, discussion of conspiracy theories and hoaxes emerged as the No. 2 theme, right behind the humor thread. As the week progressed, the percentage of posts made up of jokes fell significantly while the segment devoted to straight accounts of the May 1 raid increased, ultimately finishing the week as the third-biggest topic. And as is often the case, Twitter users also became more focused on the role social media was playing. In addition to PEJ’s regular method of tracking social media that makes up the weekly NMI, this report includes data derived using computer technology by Crimson Hexagon that examined more 160,000 blog posts, and 7.8 million posts on Twitter or Facebook from May 1 through May 8. (Note: Facebook posts are not typically included in PEJ’s social media analysis.) While PEJ’s NMI tracks links from social media posts to news articles as one way to follow online interest, Crimson Hexagon’s software is able to divide a much wider range of posts into themes, regardless of whether the piece of media has a link or not.
Twitter and Facebook
During the nighttime hours of May 1, when news of bin Laden’s death was just breaking, many people went to Twitter and Facebook to pass on the news or share their initial reactions. Indeed, media reports have generally credited Keith Urbahn—chief of staff to former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld—who tweeted word of bin Laden’s death at about 9:45 ET as being the first person to break the news. A number of tweets included nothing but the barest of information such as, “RT @BreakingNews: President Obama to announce that Osama bin Laden is dead - NBC News.” Others linked to video of President Obama’s announcement on the matter.
But the initial instinct for many others was to pass along jokes. In the day and a half following news of the death, more than 20% of the conversation on Twitter and Facebook was humorous in nature. While the discussion devoted to jokes declined over the week (down to 11% for the last four days of the week of May 5 to May 8), for the week overall, humor was the single largest narrative at 18%. “Dear #Osama Bin Laden, Welcome Home, Sincerely The Devil,” tweeted Paul Debono. A particularly popular joke showed checkmarks next to the names of three deceased global villains—Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein and bin Laden—and then included the name of a very successful living pop star who apparently invokes some people’s ire. Discussions of conspiracy theories and the possibility that bin Laden was not actually killed also appeared frequently as 17% of the conversation throughout the week fell into that category. “They want us to believe they got Osama like our parents wanted us to believe holliday characters are real,” suggested Josh Nagel.* “Of course we all believe you buried bin Laden in the sea, no really we do, honestly!” added JustRhea sarcastically. As the week progressed, the area of discussion that grew the most was news about further developments in the story. On the day after the raid, on May 2, 13% of the conversation on Facebook and Twitter fell into that category. By the end of the week, that number almost doubled to 25% on May 8. People were using social media to keep others up-to-date on new information as it emerged. For example, LEmgr shared the following information on May 4: “Official: Obama chooses not to release bin Laden photos.” Two days later, Intelwars.com tweeted, “Final Bin Laden doomsday tape may be released by Al Qaeda disciples; U.S. officials fear backlash.” And as is often the case with users of social media and especially Twitter, a number of users reflected on the role of social media itself. Many linked to a Mashable poll of its readers that showed that more than half of them learned about Bin Laden’s death on Twitter or Facebook. Others were intrigued by the story of Sohaib Athar, a.k.a. @ReallyVirtual, who lives in Abbottabad and reported the events of the raid without knowing it. Athar described the sounds of helicopters in his neighborhood on May 1 without knowing what was actually happening. “Uh oh, now I’m the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it,” Athar later wrote. Finally, politics were present in some of the Facebook and Twitter discussion as 14% of the conversation fell into that category and specifically involved the question of which president deserved more credit for bin Laden’s demise. However, unlike many other major events, politics did not overwhelm all other concerns. For those who did discuss the political fallout, Obama received almost twice as much credit as former President Bush did (9% to 5%). “Osama Bin Laden KILLED!!!! whaaaaat! Obama is will automatically be re-elected,” predicted Enitan Bereola, II. “THANKS GEORGE W,” wrote Dan Scattolini while linking to a column on Townhall.com that argued that Bush policies helped take down Bin Laden.
Blogs The issue of presidential kudos also accounted for 14% of the conversation on blogs last week, but politics was not the dominant subject that is often the case with major news stories. However, unlike on Twitter and Facebook, bloggers were evenly split between giving Obama and Bush credit. “With the death of Osama Bin Laden, Congratulations are in order to…President [Obama]. Good job. Job well done,” applauded Parker Renfrow. “Thank you [President Bush] for the countless, unpopular decisions you made that gave him [President Obama] such an unprecedented opportunity,” defended Matthew Council at Rhinosbegone. “All the policies you developed and strategies you implemented, against Obama's will, are still in place today and provided the years of intelligence necessary to locate the terrorist leader of the world, Osama Bin Laden.”
But aside from expressions of pride or relief, there were narratives reflecting uneasiness that emerged in the blogosphere. Almost a quarter of the conversation revolved around fears of repercussions as a result of the raid (13%) and talk of conspiracy and hoaxes (11%). Compared with Twitter, bloggers who did not believe the official story about the death of bin Laden had more space to describe their own alternate theories. Many bloggers pointed to a 2001 Foxnews.com report that quoted the Pakistan Observer as saying that bin Laden died that year due to lung problems. Others were troubled by the changing details of the raid put out by the Obama administration. “The White House’s ‘death of bin Laden’ story has come apart at the seams,” declared Dr. Paul Craig Roberts at Global Research. “Will it make any difference that before 48 hours had passed the story had changed so much that it no longer bore any resemblance to President Obama’s Sunday evening broadcast and has lost all credibility?” Some expressed concerns about the fallout from bin Laden’s death. “However, it's hard to tell whether the war on terrorism will get harder or easier,” wrote Amadeo. “Is chopping off the head (of Al Qaeda) effective or will he become a martyr thereby strengthening his followers? We must remain vigilant, as Al Qaeda may try to retaliate.” A lot of other bloggers simply reprinted parts of news articles warning against potential attacks, such as a story from the Australian 9 News site that quoted the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. According to the report, leaked files found on WikiLeaks quote Mohammed as saying that al Qaeda has hidden a nuclear bomb in Europe which will they will unleash if Osama bin Laden is captured. Two other themes present in the blogosphere were the role of Pakistan and the impact of the news on the U.S. economy. “This could become problematic for Pakistan,” suggested Zohair at Political Muslim. “While Pakistani officials have been stressing that Al Qaeda is not present in Pakistan. Now the US could use this incident to confront Pakistan. This could also be used to put a stamp of credibility on Predator drones even though the UN has renounced them as being too inaccurate and causing too many civilian casualties.” “The instant reaction to the death of Osama bin Laden was as it should be: oil prices dropped, stock futures rose and decent people celebrated,” noted Peter Miller at the HSH.com blog. “But these were temporary blips on the economic scene, events which will quickly fade in terms of financial impact.”
The Rest of the Week’s News
On Twitter, the second-largest story (at 10%) was a report that Facebook was considering an offer to buy Skype (Instead, Microsoft bought the popular internet calling service a week later for a reported $8.5 billion.) Stories about the hacking of the Sony company in response to its handling of the breach of the Playstation network were third, at 5%. News that the fashion retailer Express is now selling its entire catalogue on Facebook was fourth (at 4%), while the expansion of the internet radio service Pandora to include thousands of comedy clips was fifth, also at 4%.
YouTube While the death of bin Laden dominated areas of social media where people passed along news and expressed their opinions, it did not register nearly as highly on the video sharing site YouTube. One possible explanation may be the lack of dramatic images released in the wake of the highly secretive raid. Instead, the focus was on the deadly tornadoes that ripped through the Southeast over the previous two weeks. Two of the top five most-viewed news videos illustrated the resulting devastation. The most-viewed news video showed a tornado striking Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, Missouri’s largest airport, on April 22. The twister tore through a terminal and parts of concourse C forcing people to run for shelter and leaving a trail of debris. The No. 5 video, shot from inside a car on April 27, showed the driver closely following tornadoes as they swept through the north side of Philadelphia, Mississippi. Viewers can witness the devastation, toppled trees and power lines and homes covered by fallen trees.
The New Media Index is a weekly report that captures the leading commentary of blogs and social media sites focused on news and compares those subjects to that of the mainstream press. PEJ's New Media Index is a companion to its weekly News Coverage Index. Blogs and other new media are an important part of creating today's news information narrative and in shaping the way Americans interact with the news. The expansion of online blogs and other social media sites has allowed news-consumers and others outside the mainstream press to have more of a role in agenda setting, dissemination and interpretation. PEJ aims to find out what subjects in the national news the online sites focus on, and how that compared with the narrative in the traditional press. A prominent Web tracking site Icerocket, which monitors millions of blogs, uses the links to articles embedded on these sites as a proxy for determining what these subjects are. Using this tracking process as a base, PEJ staff compiles the lists of links weekday each day. They capture the top five linked-to stories on each list (25 stories each week), and reads, watches or listens to these posts and conducts a content analysis of their subject matter, just as it does for the mainstream press in its weekly News Coverage Index. It follows the same coding methodology as that of the NCI. Note: When the NMI was launched in January 2009, another web-tracking site Technorati was similarly monitoring blogs and social media. PEJ originally captured both Technorati's and Icerocket's daily aggregation. In recent months, though, this component of Technorati's site has been down with no indication of when it might resume. The priorities of the bloggers are measured in terms of percentage of links. Each time a news blog or social media Web page adds a link to its site directing its readers to a news story, it suggests that the author of the blog places at least some importance on the content of that article. The user may or may not agree with the contents of the article, but they feel it is important enough to draw the reader's attention to it. PEJ measures the topics that are of most interest to bloggers by compiling the quantitative information on links and analyzing the results. For the examination of the links from Twitter, PEJ staff monitors the tracking site Tweetmeme. Similar to Icerocket, Tweetmeme measures the number of times a link to a particular story or blog post is tweeted and retweeted. Then, as we do with Icerocket, PEJ captures the five most popular linked-to pages each weekday under the heading of "news" as determined by Tweetmeme's method of categorization. And as with the other data provided in the NMI, the top stories are determined in terms of percentage of links. (One minor difference is that Tweetmeme offers the top links over the prior 24 hours while the list used on Icerocket offers the top links over the previous 48 hours.) The Project also tracks the most popular news videos on YouTube each week. *For the sake of authenticity, PEJ has a policy of not correcting misspellings or grammatical errors that appear in direct quotes from blog postings. Note: PEJ's weekly News Coverage Index includes Sunday newspapers while the New Media Index is Monday through Friday.
By Paul Hitlin and Sovini Tan, PEJ The Coverage of the May 1 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and its aftermath, accounted for 69% of the newshole during the week of May 2-8, according to PEJ’s weekly News Coverage Index. That was enough to edged the media attention (measured at just under 69%) devoted to the presidential campaign from August 25-31, 2008, the week Democrats nominated Barack Obama at their Denver convention and John McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his surprise running mate. On cable television alone, the bin Laden story accounted for a staggering 90% of the airtime studied last week. In another illustration of the enormity of coverage, bin Laden was a dominant newsmaker in 28% of last week’s stories, the most media attention devoted to anyone since the week of Barack Obama’s inauguration, January 19-25, 2009. Overall coverage of the story did taper somewhat throughout the week. On Monday, it accounted for 83% of the newshole. On Friday, it accounted for 40%. Yet even at its lowest level, the subject dominated all other news events. The biggest bin Laden storyline from May 2-8 was piecing together the dramatic narrative of the mission to kill him, which accounted for 36% of all bin Laden coverage as new details—and sometimes corrections to previous details—continued to emerge throughout the week. The second biggest storyline was coverage of the political implications of the event, at 15%. But that lagged well behind the narrative thread. Even on cable news, which focuses heavily on political and partisan issues, that thread accounted for only 13% of the airtime. The next biggest storyline overall was the role of Pakistan and its impact on U.S.-Pakistan relations, at 10%. Then came the implications for future terrorism and national security, at 7% of all bin Laden coverage. Toward the end of the week, however, some aspects of the narrative began to change as the media explored new angles. On Friday, May 6, attention to the political implications of the killing accounted for over one-fifth of all bin Laden coverage. The numbers were about the same that day for Obama’s visit to the World Trade Center as well as for coverage of the broader implications for the fight against terrorism. Those were some of the narratives that finally began to supplant the tick-tock recounting of events, which made up 16% of the coverage studied that day, down from 53% on Monday. The impact and intensity of this story prompted PEJ to release a May 9 special report on the early coverage of the death of bin Laden, using computer technology by Crimson Hexagon that examined more than 120,000 news stories from May 1 through May 4. An updated analysis of Crimson Hexagon, incorporating the rest of the week, found little overall change in the mainstream media conversation about bin Laden. About a third of it focused on the events of the raid. Another quarter focused on the global reaction to the death. These and the other narratives comprising coverage of bin Laden’s death largely tracked along with PEJ’s NCI sample of outlets for the week. All this wall-to-wall attention left little room for the media to focus on anything else last week. In fact, the No. 2 story, the U.S. economy, registered at 5% of the newshole, a whopping 64 percentage points behind the bin Laden saga. The Death of Osama bin Laden It was a “where were you when…” piece of news, broken on Twitter, and interrupting cable and network broadcasts on the night of May 1. And on Monday morning, May 2, every channel, screen and page delivered news about bin Laden’s death. On ABC’s Good Morning America, George Stephanopoulos narrated the intro over scenes of jubilation in New York and Washington: “After a decade of anger, grief, vigilance and fear, the mastermind of 9-11 has been killed.” Erica Hill, of the CBS Early Show, was standing at Ground Zero. “We are down here on the corner of Church and Vesey Streets, two names which probably ring very familiar for folks,” she said. “Just as we prepare to mark the tenth anniversary of 9-11, the news comes in, of course, that Osama bin Laden was killed in that daring raid in Pakistan.” Meredith Vieira, on NBC’s Today Show, opened the newscast with these simple words: “Good morning, Osama bin Laden is dead.” The On May 2, the New York Times published a 1,000-word story that included an account of the disposal of bin Laden’s remains at sea: “The body then was placed on a prepared flat board and eased into the sea. Only a small group of people watching from one of the large elevator platforms that move aircraft up to the flight deck were witness to the end of America’s most wanted fugitive.” The story contained one of the more widely circulated and reprinted images—a White House photo of the president and his advisors, including Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sitting in close quarters inside the Situation Room, staring intently at a screen. Other storylines continued to remain secondary to the narrative, as journalists struggled to fill in the missing pieces of what happened in Abbottabad. This absorption with the narrative of events, however, was no doubt heightened by a White House version of the story that seemed to change with each day. On May 2, the official administration version of events included a firefight between Navy Seals and bin Laden, who reportedly used his wife as a human shield. By the next day, the record had been changed to reflect that bin Laden had not fired a weapon nor used a human shield. And by Wednesday, the story was revised yet again as the administration said the raid was not a firefight, but in fact an operation that drew enemy fire only at the beginning by bin Laden’s courier. Even as the largest share of the week’s coverage was devoted to figuring out the events of the bin Laden mission, other angles did work their way into the media coverage. One of these was politics. As early as Monday evening, MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews asked, “So what’s the impact politically? Does this news reshape the 2012 outlook?” One of his guests, Major Garrett of National Journal, offered that the news might not trump concerns about the problems facing Americans on a day-to-day basis. “The question for President Obama, as this great event plays out, is how much is the country going to be focused on national security, terrorism, as it regards to the 2012 election, as opposed to the economy, budget and the deficit,” said Garrett. At least in the hours after the initial news, though, Obama appeared to be riding a wave of increased support. Ann Compton of ABC News reported on a May 3 radio broadcast that “President Obama is getting a significant bump up in the polls for his handling of his job and Afghanistan,” as she cited a Washington Post/Pew Research Center poll that showed Obama’s overall approval rating up to 56%. Some Other outlets raised the issue of what bin Laden’s demise could mean for the risk of terrorist reprisal in the U.S. An ABC World News Tonight report on May 3 illustrated those concerns with a family on vacation. “The Space Needle in Seattle today,” narrated Jim Avila. “Plenty of tourists, but the Eagle family from Forth Worth, Texas, did have to calm their son’s fear before the trip.” Most of the experts interviewed, however, suggested that ordinary Americans had little to worry about. Still other stories followed the debate over whether the White House would—or should—release photos of the deceased bin Laden, a move that President Obama ultimately vetoed, arguing that they could provoke a backlash from bin Laden supporters around the world. That decision was characterized by the Washington Post in a May 5 article as an indication of some tensions within the administration; “The move appeared to contradict CIA Director Leon Panetta’s assertion Tuesday that the photos would eventually be made public, suggesting a split among the president’s top aides.” By Sunday, May 8, a week after the raid, the bin Laden story was still a fixture on the nation’s front pages. In the Washington Post, two front page stories were devoted to the subject—one on seized footage of the al-Qaeda chief, the other on the future leadership of his terrorist organization. The New York Times ran with a story about bin Laden’s life in hiding. And the Los Angeles Times front page contained a story on what the bin Laden raid tells us about the increased sophistication of the CIA. The Rest of the Week’s News Crowded out by the news about Osama bin Laden, the rest of the top stories almost seemed like an afterthought last week. The U.S. economy was a distant No. 2 story, at 5% of the newshole, largely due to encouraging employment statistics from the month of April. Flooding in the South and Midwest accounted for the No. 3 story, at 3% of the newshole. Also at 3% was the U.S. presidential election, with coverage driven largely by the first Republican debate in Greenville, South Carolina. Finally, the No. 5 story of the week (2%) revolved around education in the U.S. as various outlets reported on school systems struggling under the weight of layoffs, budget cuts, and inadequate student assessment policies. Newsmakers of the Week Few Indeed, all the week’s top newsmakers were central figures in the bid Laden story. Obama himself was the focus of 17% of all stories, a sizeable number in and of itself. (The previous week, Obama was a dominant newsmaker in 10% of the stories). There was a major drop-off to the next tier of newsmakers which included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (1%), White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan (1%), and CIA director Leon Panetta (1%). 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 1,000 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. Jesse Holcomb of PEJ |
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It was Sarah Palin and her controversial “One Nation” bus tour
that led bloggers back to politics.
A run of gloomy news—more partisan disagreement on
raising the debt ceiling, rising unemployment numbers and continued housing
woes—drove the economy to the forefront of the media agenda last week.
Fox News report summarized the Republican reaction to
the meeting: “Sources say in today’s meeting the speaker pushed the president
on where his debt crisis proposal is, and in the end, lawmakers sounded
disappointed.” The following day, the Moody’s credit rating agency reported
that it was considering downgrading the U.S. credit rating.
But Romney had to share the spotlight with Palin, whose
refusal to disclose her presidential plans did little to stem media interest. The
phenomenon was so pronounced that much of the political coverage of Palin
consisted of the media talking about themselves.
As bad news about the economy mounted
last week, Obama edged out two possible Republican challengers in registering
as the top newsmaker. He was the lead newsmaker in 5% of stories studied by PEJ
between May 30 and June 5.
On the social networking site Twitter, the five top news topics all involved social media and how people or companies can expand their influence online.
A storm system that spawned the deadliest
tornado in decades, killing more than 100 residents of Joplin Missouri, last
week registered as thebiggest
weather story since the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in
Journalism began monitoring the press.
(The regular weekly list of most linked-to news stories on blogs and Twitter, and a write-up of the top news videos on YouTube, is 
An
alleged sexual assault with international ramifications was the No. 1 topic in
the mainstream media last week. But two other stories connected to domestic
politics combined for nearly a quarter of the newshole, as coverage of the 2012
presidential campaign reached a high water mark.
The two subjects that dominated the blogosphere last week illustrate the wide range of debate and discussion that fills that online platform. One focused on a celebrity spouse split and the other on one of the most dramatic and perhaps significant news events in recent years.
The No. 1 story was about Microsoft's purchase of the internet phone service Skype, with 12% of links. The week before, rumors that another major tech company, Facebook, would buy Skype made it the No. 2 story on Twitter, with 10% of links.
The death of Osama bin Laden continued
to dominate the news last week, but the narrative finally began to shift from 
The killing of Osama bin Laden accounted for 80% of the news
links on blogs last week, making it the biggest single-week news topic discussed
in the blogosphere since the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in
Journalism began tracking blogs in January 2009. The bin Laden conversation
also accounted for fully half (50%) of the news links on Twitter from May 2-May
6. That would register it as one of the top 10 Twitter stories in the past two
years.
