News Index
The deadly tornadoes that ripped through the Southeast on April 27—reportedly killing more than an estimated 300 people and leaving hundreds more missing—topped the news agenda from April 25-May 1, accounting for 15% of the newshole, according to the PEJ’s News Coverage Index. No domestic natural disaster has generated that level of attention in a single week since September 1-7, 2008 (17%), when Hurricane Gustav hit Louisiana, causing mass evacuations. Storm coverage was boosted in part by Barack Obama’s April 29 visit to hard-hit Tuscaloosa, Alabama—a trip he took after making the decision in Washington to give the green light to the bin Laden mission. Video images of twisters—many provided by amateur videographers—and scenes of devastation received heavy play on television, especially on the broadcast networks, where the storm news accounted for 23% of the airtime studied by PEJ. Standing in a flattened part of Tuscaloosa where 16 people were killed, ABC News’ Steve Osunsami described the human toll: “First responders who were here were so busy pulling the living from all of these debris, they were forced to ignore the dead. That’s how bad this is. You can hear the sound of smoke detectors in the distance but no one’s here. There’s the smell of death.” At the same time the media were covering the aftermath of the violent storms, they were also preparing to chronicle the week’s No. 4 story—the highly anticipated British royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, which accounted for 11% of the newshole. U.S. media outlets sent their top anchors and correspondents to London to report back on the young couple, the guests, and the feelings of British citizens about the lavish event, and of course, the wedding dress. (At least one, however, NBC anchor Brian Williams, left London to cover the tornado story in the U.S.) Like the tornadoes, the royal wedding was a major network news television event, with newscasts beginning their live coverage as early as 4 a.m. (Eastern) on Friday, the day of the wedding. On the networks, the wedding accounted for 36% of the week’s coverage. The U.S. economy was the No. 2 story last week at 12%—down slightly from 14% the week before. The news was driven by reports about Federal Reserve chairman Benjamin Bernanke’s Wednesday press conference in which he took questions from reporters—a first in the history of the Fed. In addition, about a quarter of the economic coverage focused on the federal budget deficit. 
About a quarter of the Obama narrative focused on the nominations of Leon Panetta to be the next defense secretary and David Petraeus to head the CIA. But about two-thirds of the Obama coverage was given over to rumors about the president’s place of birth. Following efforts by potential GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump to raise questions about Obama’s citizenship, the president used an April 27 news conference to announce that his long-form birth certificate was now public. Trump responded by publicly taking credit for the “revelation.” Last week marked the third consecutive week that rumors about Obama’s birthplace generated significant attention in the mainstream media. Continuing upheaval in the Middle East rounded out the top five stories last week, as a violent crackdown on protestors in Syria and a NATO bombing of Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan compound that killed his youngest son accounted for much of the 11% devoted to the turmoil around the region. For the first time, the balance of coverage tipped toward Syria, the focus of more coverage than Libya last week. Overall attention to the Middle East was down from 15% the week before. Newsmakers of the Week
A major press conference, a visit to Alabama in the wake
of disaster and rumors about his birth certificate propelled Barack Obama to
the top of the headlines, making him the dominant newsmaker in 10% of all
stories during the week of April 25-May 1. That is up slightly from 8% the week
before. (To be considered a dominant newsmaker, someone must be featured in at
least 50% of a story.)
Donald Trump, in his second week in a row as the No. 2 newsmaker, featured prominently in 5% of all stories studied. His presidential aspirations were overshadowed by his questions about Obama’s place of birth, and later, by his reaction to the White House’s publicizing of Obama’s birth certificate. And finally, at No. 5 (2%), was Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was to attend the launch of the space shuttle Endeavor, commanded by her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly (the launch, scheduled for April 29, was delayed). Giffords had not been among the top five newsmakers since the week of February 14-20. 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 April 18-22, 14% of the news links on blogs were about the awarding of a Pulitzer Prize to the Los Angeles Times for its coverage of corrupt officials in Bell, California, tying it for the No. 1 subject ranking, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The prize-winning series, which appeared in the spring of 2010, exposed the exorbitant salaries of city officials in the small, working class town. As a result of the investigation, eight former city officials were charged with multiple felonies and many California counties instituted tough new disclosure laws. Last week, the Pulitzer Prize committee awarded the Times a gold medal for public service, which triggered a conversation about the improper activities of public officials. In addition, many bloggers saw the award as a sign that quality newspaper journalism is not dead, as social media users discussed one of traditional journalism's most prestigious awards. And in another sign of the interactivity that social media can facilitate, several individuals at the Los Angeles Times shared information on how the series was created and the joyous reaction of those in the newsroom when they learned of the Pulitzer award. Another California story making the list of top five subjects among bloggers (at 5%) was an agreement between Governor Jerry Brown and the state's prison guards. The new contract allows guards to save unlimited vacation days which could result in massive payoffs for officers when they retire. Most bloggers felt that Brown was giving special deals to a group that had been one of his biggest political backers. The No. 3 biggest story last week, at 10%, was another California issue that angered bloggers, although it had nothing to do with politics or public policy. Instead, it was a drive-thru funeral home in Compton, California where mourners can pull up to the facility and pay respects to the deceased through a glass-encased chamber. A number of commenters found the idea tasteless and a poor way to honor the dead. Elsewhere on Blogs The other story that tied for first on blogs last week (at 14%) highlights two patterns found in social media: the influence of British news and culture and the marking of deaths of famous individuals. The passing of actress Elisabeth Sladen, 63, was especially noteworthy for British children because of Sladen's role in The Sarah Jane Adventures, a British science fiction series which was a spin-off of the show Doctor Who. Many blogs linked to a BBC page that featured children's memories of Sladen. Bloggers frequently take time to note the passing of well-known individuals. In the last six weeks alone, the deaths of columnist David Broder and actress Elizabeth Taylor both received significant attention in the New Media Index The role of social media in presidential campaigns was the fourth subject, at 6%. The story reported on how, in the wake of Barack Obama's successful embrace of social media in 2008, all candidates are now looking online to aid their campaigns. And another subject that tied for fifth last week (at 5%) was a Los Angeles Times story about Mexican drug cartels setting up shop in cities around the U.S. such as Seattle, Anchorage and Minneapolis. On Twitter, the top stories had to do with both the pros and cons of new technologies and social media.
The controversy over the discovery by Wired that iPhones and iPads have tracking devices that have been sending users' location information to Apple for the past 10 months was No. 2 on Twitter, at 9%. Overwhelmingly, Twitterers were disturbed by the news and worried about a possible invasion of privacy. The issue has stirred enough controversy that Senator Al Franken (D-MN) announced he would be holding a Congressional hearing on mobile privacy in May. A study by the dating site OKCupid showing that active users of Twitter tend to have shorter relationships than the rest of the population was third biggest story (at 7%). That was followed by two different stories about Facebook, both at 5%. One was the marking of the one-year anniversary of the creation of Facebook's "Like" button, a function that has been duplicated on thousands of other sites across the web. The other was news that Facebook had accidentally turned on the email notification function for some users, sparking a wave of complaints. Los Angeles Times Pulitzer Winning Reporting The corruption of government officials in Bell, California, exposed by Los Angeles Times reporters was brought back into focus last week when the paper won a Pulitzer Prize. A few bloggers used the opportunity to criticize an improper use of public funds. "Bell City, one of the poorest cities in Los Angeles County, paid its city manager $787,000 a year," recalled Jim Hoft at Mr. Punky Kitten. "Los Angeles Times reporter Jeff Gottleib released a list of Bell city officials and their salaries in a July report. The citizens of Bell were outraged by this revelation and held a protest after the report was published...There was one fact that Gottleib kept from his readers. The corrupt Bell politicians were democrats, every last one of them. It was probably best he didn't mention it. He may not have been awarded a Pulitzer."* Most bloggers addressing the subject, however, used the story to discuss the role of the media. "Today is a great day in the journalism world. The Los Angeles Times (the newspaper for my region) won two Pulitzer Prizes," announced Ed Carrasco. "The Los Angeles Times' Pulitzer Prize win is obviously good news for the aging paper, which has seen cutbacks in its staff and an ownership gone amok. It's also good for local government transparency." "The Los Angeles Times wins, deservedly, for its devastating series of reports that exposed corruption in the city of Bell, California," wrote Anna Clark at Isak during her rundown of winners. "Altogether, this is badass, and personally one of my favorite journalistic projects in awhile." And some Times staffers, including some of those who worked on the project, shared their first-hand observations of the reporting process. "I was part of a team of 20 Los Angeles Times reporters and editors, led by Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives, that was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize gold medal for public service," shared Times reporter Robert Lopez. "The story was broken by Gottlieb and Vives, who first reported the high salaries in summer 2010. I became involved with Paloma Esquivel and wrote two investigative articles, both of which were submitted as part of the Pulitzer package." "this is what it looked like in the office today," described LA Times Blog Editor Tony Pierce at the Busblog underneath a video of the office celebration. "there was much celebration for winning journalism's highest honor...And then there's the Times as a whole whose last 3-4 years have been distracted by numerous things a paper shouldn't have to experience. Don't call it a comeback." Jerry Brown and Prison Guards After Gov. Brown approved a 200-page contract with the state's prison guards, one clause stood out in terms of generating reporting and commentary. Guards will now be allowed to save unlimited amounts of vacation, which could result in large payments when they retire. Critics claimed this would be a huge liability for taxpayers. Brown defended the agreement, however, by claiming that the furloughs imposed by Gov. Schwarzenegger added so many days to corrections officers' time off that they could not help but exceed the vacation caps. Brown drew the ire of the blogosphere when the Los Angeles Times also reported that the California Correctional Peace Officers Association spent nearly $2 million to help his campaign last year. "California unions spent tens of millions to put retread Governor Jerry Brown back into office. So, it is not all that surprising that he is, once again, doing California's taxpayers no favors by letting the unions ride roughshod over him in recent budget negotiations," argued USA In the News. "This is like committing a felony is broad daylight, in front of everyone who pretty much thinks you are a criminal," added Robert Konishi at Blazin' Asian. "This blatant behavior during this sensitive time just shows how Jerry Brown and the Prison Guard union just don't care what normal folks think." "Governor 'Moonbeam' pays off a voting block," declared Yossarian at DailyBrisk. Drive-Thru Funeral Home Although the Los Angeles Times story on the drive-thru funeral home in Compton described some of its benefits-such as the convenience for mourners and the ability for many people to see well-known community members-most of the bloggers saw it as objectionable. "I think that's the most tasteless thing I've ever heard of," proclaimed Alisha at Because I Said So. "We live in a "microwave" society where we've become used to getting whatever we want at the drop of a dime...No one wants to be inconvenienced, but there are some situations in which you should put forth some effort...If it's too much to park at a funeral home, drop a card or sign a guestbook and take a quick glance at someone you deemed important enough to pay respects to, what's the point of going?" "To me it screams undignified and tacky but clearly the market exists and kudos for the funeral home for offering the service to those in their time of need," added Five Forces. "What have we come to that we can't stop and park our car to go in and pay our respects to the dead?" wondered Tales of a Misplaced Southern Boy. YouTube The most-viewed news video on YouTube last week was an embarrassing moment for a world leader. The video shows Czech Republic president Vaclav Klaus pocketing a pen during an April 10 press conference in Chile alongside his Chilean counterpart Sebastián Piñera. The Czech leader is seen taking the pen out of the box and inspecting it before the pen vanishes under the table and into his pocket. The viewers are guided through the complete operation with the help of red circles and arrows.
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
One thing was clear last week, the first
time that the 2012 presidential race generated significant coverage. Donald
Trump has emerged as the early winner of the media primary—at least in terms of
coverage and ability to drive the news agenda. For much of this year, the looming presidential race has been simmering only in the background of the news. That is in sharp contrast to 2007, when the race to succeed George Bush was already a major story at this point in the year. But now, at least for the moment, things have changed. For the week of April 18-24, the 2012 presidential race emerged as a big story, more than doubling its previous high water mark this year. It accounted for 8% of the newshole studied by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, making it the third-biggest story in the news last week. And a closely related story (at 3%) involved attention to Obama himself, with a particular focus on the “birther” movement that questions whether the president was born in the U.S. In both cases, that was due in large part to the attention garnered by real estate developer, reality TV star and now possible presidential candidate Trump—who has embraced the birther issue and become the rising star of the GOP presidential field. Indeed, Trump was the week’s second leading newsmaker behind Obama, registering as a dominant figure in 4% of all the week’s stories. That is six times more attention than the next most-covered potential GOP contender, Sarah Palin, generated last week. The week’s No. 1 story, at 15%, was the continued unrest and violence in the Mideast, primarily in Libya. Coverage was up from 10% the previous week, fueled by several significant developments in the Libyan war including the deaths of two journalists and a modification of the U.S. military role with the introduction of Predator drone strikes. Coverage of the economy, 14%, was once again driven by concern about the government’s financial health, which included an ominous warning from the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s. After two weeks atop the news agenda, economic-related coverage plunged dramatically from the previous week (39%), when Obama rolled out his deficit plan. A story with a direct impact on the economy, the continued rise of gas prices, was the No. 5 subject (3% of the newshole) as the average cost per gallon at the pump reached $3.85. April 20 also marked one year since the BP Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and triggered a massive environmental disaster. Last week, coverage of that anniversary was the fourth-biggest story, at 6% of the newshole. And some of the media updates on the situation were not very rosy. The Trump Factor
For a number of reasons, including that
fact that there is an incumbent seeking re-election, coverage of the 2012
presidential campaign has gotten off to a slower start than the 2008 race. (So
far this year, it has accounted for only 2% of the newshole compared with 7% at
the same point four years ago.)
But that began to change last week as the race took root in the cable news sector, which is most attuned to politics and partisan controversy. (The campaign was the No. 1 story in cable last week, filling 19% of the airtime studied. In stark contrast, it accounted for only 2% of the front-page newspaper coverage examined by PEJ.) There were several news-making developments last week, including the entry of long shot libertarian-leaning Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, into the Republican race. And there was a drop in Obama’s approval ratings that got some attention. But the real attraction was Trump, who has jumped to the top of some GOP polls with a campaign that has thus far focused on Obama’s birthplace and blunt talk about getting tough with China and seizing Middle Eastern oil fields. If Trump’s sweeping policy positions and birther mantra are raising eyebrows about his seriousness as a candidate, the media last week seemed primarily respectful of his ability to so quickly inject himself into the race. On ABC’s April 18 newscast, anchor Diane Sawyer discussed “the insurgent presidential rumbling from Donald Trump” and cited a poll showing him leading the Republican field with 26% support. In the same report, Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos previewed an interview with Trump in which he advocated seizing Iraqi oil fields by force.
“In the old days…when you had a war, to
the victor belongs the spoils,” Trump asserted. “You go in, you win the war and
you take it.”
Two nights later, conservative Fox News host Bill O’Reilly described Trump as “a smart guy, he's an impatient man, and he doesn't much care what anybody thinks about him…In the primary debates, Donald Trump would steal the show and little would be off the table.” At the same time, O’Reilly opined that “a Trump candidacy would help Barack Obama because it would divide the Republican Party. That is, unless Mr. Trump wins the primary battle. Then Mr. Obama might have a huge problem.” Another 3% of last week’s coverage was devoted to the president and his administration, and the birther issue took center stage. In Arizona, Republican Governor Jan Brewer vetoed a bill that would have, among other things, forced presidential candidates to produce a birth certificate or other pieces of evidence to qualify for the state’s ballot. Another GOP governor, Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, said he would sign a similar bill in his state. While many media analyses indicate that Republicans could be hurt with independent voters if they are too closely identified with birther claims, it is Trump who is seen as having revived the issue in the campaign. The claim that Obama was not born in the U.S. has been refuted by the president’s Certificate of Live Birth document and the fact that Honolulu’s major newspapers carried announcements of Obama’s birth in August 1961. Last week, potential GOP presidential hopeful Michelle Bachmann—who had previously suggested that candidates should produce their birth certificates—appeared to agree that Obama was U.S.-born after ABC’s George Stephanopoulos showed her his Certificate of Live Birth. On April 18, Chris Matthews, one of the hosts in MSNBC’s liberal prime-time lineup, took Trump to task for just that. Trump is accusing Obama of being a “fraud from day one,” Matthews said. “He says nobody knew him at school, like he was some impostor and never went to those schools. He said he never really got into the schools in the Ivy League he got into… He says the guy is a confection, a nonexistent figure. He’s suggesting that Barack Obama doesn‘t really exist as we know him.” The Mideast The turmoil in the Middle East had something of a comeback in the media last week. The story registered its highest level of coverage in three weeks. It generated the most attention, 23%, in the online news sector, which week after week is usually more internationally oriented than any other part of the media culture in its agenda. Several major events drove the coverage in Libya, including the deaths of Western photojournalists Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, who were killed in the battle-torn Libyan city of Misrata. The introduction of Predator drone strikes—targeted at troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi—also made news as did a visit to Libya by Senator John McCain, who, according to an Associated Press account, described the Libyan rebels as “my heroes.” With a significant uptick in violence last week as Syrian security forces reportedly killed scores of anti-government protestors, that nation’s crisis accounted for the bulk of last week’s Mideast coverage that was not devoted to Libya. The Economy Even as coverage plunged last week, the U.S. economy was still the No. 1 story in two sectors—newspapers (17%) and radio (19%). And more than half the economic coverage was about the debt and deficit, including the news that President Obama and Republican Congressman Paul Ryan—who have unveiled competing and very different proposals—took to the road last week to sell their plans. One significant piece of worrisome news was this warning about U.S. debt. “On Monday, the ratings firm Standard & Poor's lowered its outlook on the United States rating to negative. Although the agency did not actually lower its highest AAA rating on the country's debt, it was the first time since [it] started assigning outlooks in 1989 that the country was given an outlook that was something other than stable,” a New York Times story reported April 19. Spiking gas prices captured the media’s attention as well last week as some reports suggested the pain at the pump was having an impact on Obama’s political fortunes—something the president acknowledged at a fundraiser. “Imagine intersecting lines on a chart: gasoline prices going up, presidential approval ratings going down,” noted a Christian Science Monitor story on April 23. “It’s a reality for Obama, and he knows it.” A Grim Anniversary In the spring and early summer of 2010, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was easily the dominant story in the U.S. mainstream media, accounting for 22% of the newshole in the first 100 days after the April 20 accident. (The U.S. economy was next, well back at 12%). Last week’s coverage of the anniversary was relatively modest (6%). The subject generated the most attention in the newspaper section (10% of front-page news.) On CNN—the cable channel that devoted the most coverage to the story last year—last week’s progress report, so to speak, was not particularly comforting. “Some beaches are suffering from chronic re-oiling, that's oil that washes back onto the shore,” said anchor/correspondent Soledad O’Brien. “And many Gulf businesses are still feeling it…So far, BP has paid out $4 billion of that $20 billion pledged [to aid Gulf residents]. But…there are plenty of complaints about no payments, slow payments, or as in [one] woman's case, low payments, only 10 percent of what she says she's due.”
Newsmakers of the Week From April 18-24, Barack Obama was the leading figure in the news, registering as a dominant newsmaker in 8% of the week’s stories. That is, however, down significantly from the previous week (13%) when the president’s deficit reduction plan drove much of the narrative. (To be considered a dominant newsmaker, someone must be featured in at least 50% of a story.) Donald Trump was the No. 2 newsmaker, at 4%, followed by slain photojournalist Tim Hetherington (2%), who also co-directed Restrepo, the Oscar-nominated documentary about the Afghanistan war. The fourth-leading newsmaker, at 1%, was scandal-plagued Senator John Ensign (R-NV), who announced he was resigning his seat last week. Close behind him, also at 1%, were Senator John McCain, who generated coverage for his visit to Libya and Michelle Obama. The First Lady made headlines after it was revealed that a plane she was traveling in came closer than it should have to a military jet. 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
For the week of April 11-15, the Jobs book ranked No. 1 on blogs, with almost a third (31%) of the news links, and ranked second on Twitter at 7%, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. This is the first biography in which Jobs agreed to participate, something that appealed to internet commenters dissatisfied with several previous unauthorized biographies about the Apple CEO. The author of the book was also announced—veteran journalist and author Walter Isaacson. While technology stories are very popular on Twitter, they do not frequently dominate on blogs. This was the first time that anything related to Apple placed among the top stories on blogs in 2011. And it represents only the third time that a technology topic has appeared among the top five stories any week this year. On Twitter however, either Apple itself or an Apple product was one of the top stories eight times in 14 weeks in 2011. A technology story also registered as the No. 3 subject on blogs, at 15%. It featured a clip of Mike Lazaridis, CEO of Research In Motion (the company that makes BlackBerries), ending an interview abruptly when asked about the company’s security problems. The discussion on blogs mainly focused on whether or not the interview was fair. Two stories about the economy accounted for 23% of the links, one looking at what President Obama was expected to say in a his April 13 speech about the deficit and the other an op-ed about eliminating Roth IRAs. The No. 4 story, with 8% of links, was about the CIA’s new policy of de-emphasizing detention of terror suspects caught abroad (other than in Afghanistan and Iraq). The No. 5 story (4%) detailed an accidental U.S. attack on a convoy of civilians in Afghanistan. Steve Jobs Biography The story that made blog headlines this past week was about Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who agreed to cooperate with the biography written by Walter Isaacson, the former CEO of CNN, managing editor of Time magazine, and currently the CEO of the Aspen Institute. Isaacson also has written biographies about Henry Kissinger, Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. The book is to be called iSteve: The Book of Jobs. And this first authorized biography ignited the blogosphere, and not just on English-language blogs: Blogs in Arabic, Spanish, German and Japanese also linked to the story. The overall tone of the commentary was supportive of Jobs’ collaboration with Isaacson on the project. “Put it this way, Isaacson is more than qualified to write a biography on Steve Jobs,” said Upgrade OS X. “Somewhat cheesy title aside, the biography is likely to be interesting not simply because of its topic …but because of the hitherto unseen levels of access to which Isaacson has achieved,” wrote Chris Davies at Slash Gear. “This is one biography you’re going to want to read in 2012. Isaacson is the only author that has been able to gain the trust of Steve Jobs,” wrote Gary Ng at iPhoneinCanada. But a minority of bloggers were less laudatory and at least one brought up Jobs’ health issues. “That is why I will never read this authorized biography of Steve Jobs, with its laughably bad title and its near-certain impossible mission,” wrote Brian S Hall of The Smartphone Wars Community, “And, yes, in case you are wondering, it is perfectly common for you to think that Jobs has authorized this biography because he is at death’s door.”* “Where’s Kitty Kelly when you need her?” wrote 112 West, referring to the controversial celebrity biographer of Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Reagan, Oprah Winfrey and several more. Tweeters were also generally excited about the book and anxious to read it. “I Want it NOW,” wrote Trimtabber. “Will it be #magical?” asked Charlie Hoover. “'iSteve The Book of Jobs’: Bril title = good read?” wondered HowardRedFox. RIM CEO Interview Bloggers had an interesting reaction to the video showing RIM CEO Mike Lazridis storming out of an interview when BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan Jones asked him a question about BlackBerry security concerns. They were sympathetic to both the journalist and the interviewee, and several noted that since they were seeing the clip out of context, they did not feel that they had enough information to pass judgment. Perhaps due to the international context of the discussion (a British journalist interviewing the CEO of a Canadian company about security issues in India and the Arab world), the clip was discussed on blogs in various languages, including Chinese, French, Spanish and Romanian. “We give Mike a small benefit of the doubt,” wrote L.K. at RIM Mobile, a fan site, “It almost seems Mike may have misinterpreted ‘security issue’ as being a problem with the BlackBerry platform instead of with national security of India and Middle Eastern countries.” “[T]he question that tipped him over the edge seemed so innocuous—something that your average CEO would be able to punt into the long grass without thinking about it…” wrote Ben Matthews at The Comms Blog, “In fairness to Mike, we don’t know what went on before the short clip the BBC posted.” “Walking off an interview can sometimes create worst reactions than to stay clam and try to address a question (whether you see it as fair or not),” wrote Kempton at ideas Revolutionary, “Sometimes walking out of a harassing interview is the only way but I don’t see the BBC interview as one of those.”* “My knee-jerk reaction was that Lazaridis was out of line. However, I freely admit that I’m biased toward the media in most circumstances such as this. Far too often we get nothing more than PR-coached responses, so it’s decidedly refreshing when someone decides to be candid,” wrote Brad McCarty at The Next Web, “Obviously Lazaridis had PR with him—you can hear the voice, faintly, suggesting that the interviewer should ask other questions—but he did at least seem to be forthcoming with his answers."
Twitter The top story on Twitter last week, with 7% of the links, was a Mashable infographic called The Winners & Losers of Social Networking that provided details about the popularity of different social networks and demographic information about their users. Users tweeted the graphic in order to recommend it to their followers. “Fascinating! Surprised to see men top women in usage!” tweeted Madison+Main. “Interesting trends and insights, worth a peek,” said Andrew Barker. “I’d love to see same statistics, say, 5 years later,” wrote Tania Roust. The Steve Jobs book took second place with 7% of tweets and right behind (also at 7%) was a TechCrunch article about PayPal cofounder Peter Theil’s thoughts on higher education. Thiel believes that there is a “higher education bubble,” and that too many people go to college given the false belief that higher education will protect them from hardship. Most simply retweeted the article, but a few opined that it was noteworthy. Next came two stories about the post-earthquake crisis in Japan in fourth place with 6% of links. And a Mashable article about social media and journalism was at fifth with 5% of links. The article explained how social media have created incentives for people to share quality news content with each other. YouTube The two most popular news videos on YouTube last week were also among the top five videos the previous week. No. 1 was an international soccer match in Egypt that erupted in chaos. And the second video was a satirical ad by the National Republican Senatorial Committee criticizing President Obama. The third most viewed video involved the Japanese disaster—a subject which has been featured frequently in the past four weeks. However, this time the story had a positive twist.
Three weeks after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, a two-year-old dog named Ban was found alive at sea and rescued by the Japanese Coast Guard. Last week, viewers witnessed the reunion of the dog and its owner at an animal care center in Miyagi prefecture. The same video includes scenes of the operation that rescued the dog from the debris of a house that was swept to sea by the tsunami. The owner of the dog, whose face is partially covered by a mask, wished to remain anonymous.
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
The drama of an averted government shutdown transformed the media narrative last week into an epic contest of competing ideas about federal spending. For a second week in a row, domestic economic issues dominated the media’s attention, after months of the press focused on events abroad. The economy accounted for 39% of the newshole studied by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism during the week of April 11-17. It also marked the first time in 2011 that the economy held the top spot for at least two weeks straight. Hardly dipping from the previous week’s level of 40%, news about the economy was the top story in all media sectors studied, from cable TV to the Internet. And the particularly high level of coverage in cable (53%) and radio (52%), two politics-heavy platforms, indicated just how politically loaded the debate about federal spending was. Much of the coverage consisted of analysis of the speech Wednesday by President Obama, one that based on listening to many press accounts renewed support for the President among much of his liberal base. Obama was also the dominant newsmaker in 13% of stories—double that of the previous week—a bigger share than any week since January 24-30, when Obama gave the State of the Union. (To be a dominant newsmaker, someone must be featured in at least 50% of a story.) The jockeying for message control between an Obama-led rally to protect entitlement programs versus a Republican attempt to privatize them underscored the key subtext of last week’s federal spending debate—the 2012 presidential election. The week was also marked by another sign that the media are gearing up for the campaign—rumors about Obama’s national origin resurfaced, this time from tycoon Donald Trump, a potential GOP contender for the presidential nomination. These questions made up much of the coverage that focused on the Obama administration, a topic that accounted for another 4% of the newshole. The two foreign crises that only a few weeks ago had monopolized the public’s and the media’s attention continued to receive coverage, but not even an elevated disaster rating level in Japan nor news of Col. Muammar Qaddafi cluster-bombing civilians were able to drive coverage of these two troubled places any higher than the previous week. A Defining Week for Obama Fresh off of a week of nerve-testing federal budget negotiations, the mainstream news media’s attention last week turned to a related but bigger issue—how to deal with the growing federal deficit, or “a new set of showdowns” according to USA Today.
After the last-minute April 8 compromise to avoid a government shutdown, some conservatives in the media were disappointed with their own side, including talk show host Sean Hannity. “As I’m watching the weekend programs and I’m listening to some of the analysis out there, I’m a little bewildered by all of this,” Hannity told radio listeners April 11. “You would think this is the greatest victory since World War II. You know, the Republican Party—you got leadership out there, there’s a lot of backslapping going on, a lot of bow-taking and a lot of praise for their brilliance in getting the $38.5 billion deal and keeping the government open. Well, $38.5 billion wasn’t the number that we were promised.” Obama did not escape critiques from his own camp as well. On his CNN prime-time program now entitled In the Arena, Eliot Spitzer on April 12 remarked that “the harshest critique of [Obama] comes from his own supporters.” Spitzer’s guest, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, praised the president, but gently prodded him to lead more forcefully in the debate about government spending. “I think his ability to articulate what we are facing, and to ask us to reach for a big broad vision is unique in our time… I think a lot of us would like to see more of that.” Conservative media also criticized the President for the deal. The Wall Street Journal on April 11 argued that Obama had been late to the table when it came to the larger debate about the federal deficit, saying “until now, Mr. Obama has been largely absent from the raging debate over the long-term deficit.” In response to his April 13 speech, however, which critiqued the Republican deficit reduction plan and outlined his own, involving tax increases and entitlement protection, the tone of coverage toward the President shifted and became generally more positive, if toward his stiffened spine if not toward his policies. On the CBS Evening News that night, anchor Katie Couric described the mixture of cooperation and aggressiveness with which the President addressed the Republican opponents. “The President said the two parties have come together before, they can do it again, but along with that olive branch, he was carrying a baseball bat.” On the NBC April 14 broadcast of the Today Show, White House correspondent Chuck Todd said of the speech: “Well, it’s on. The President didn’t just unveil a debt plan; he ratcheted up the debate big time on this issue of what to do with the nation’s entitlement programs. And he guaranteed that the issue is going to become very contentious, and front-and-center in the 2012 presidential campaign.” Perhaps more important was the verdict from the more liberal prime-time MSNBC talk host Rachel Maddow, who was often critical of Obama during the health care debate and who may be something of a proxy for the liberal wing of his own party whose enthusiasm would help during the 2012 election cycle. Maddow called the speech big and “unexpectedly satisfying” in her April 13 broadcast. “Amid the nonsense, arithmetic-free rhetoric about deficits and debt, the President made the point today that historically, it makes sense to run deficits when the country is at war or when the country is in a recession, but when you are not at war or in a recession, you should aim to get back in balance.” A less charitable critique, if more predictable, came from some on the right: Rush Limbaugh on his April 14 radio broadcast called the speech “a disgusting display. It was in no way Presidential.”
The primary Republican plan is offered by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan. While both plans claim to shrink the federal deficit by about $4 trillion over 10 years, the Ryan plan would do so by privatizing Medicare and handing over Medicaid to the states for administration. It would also make the Bush tax cuts permanent. The press saw them as the outline of what the coming presidential election might be fought over. A Los Angeles Times article on April 17 characterized the dueling plans as blueprints for what is to come in the fight in Washington that may impact votes down the road. “Both the Ryan-Republican plan and the one outlined by Obama in his speech last week are opening bids in what's expected to be a drawn-out battle along partisan lines.” The Rest of the Week’s News A distant second to budget-related economic issues was coverage of unrest in the Middle East (10%), most of which was focused on Libya. The chief issue in the news last week was a potential ceasefire orchestrated by the African Union and the siege by Gaddafi forces on the rebel stronghold of Misrata. Another smaller portion of the Mideast coverage was taken up with news about former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, who suffered a heart attack on the same day he was to be questioned by prosecutors. The continuing situation in Japan was the third biggest story in the news last week, at 8% of the newshole. Media attention held steady from the week before (7%) despite two significant developments. Early last week aftershocks of a 6.6 magnitude rippled through Northeastern Japan even as the country tried to restore normalcy after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Coverage of the aftershocks quickly shifted back to the prevailing narrative, nuclear safety, when on Tuesday the Japanese government raised the alert level of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to a 7—the same category as Chernobyl. Several Republicans took formal steps toward entering the 2012 presidential race, including former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. But it was another potential Republican candidate—real estate tycoon and television personality Donald Trump—who made the rounds, and the news, by stirring up widely debunked rumors about Obama’s real place of birth. Those rumors accounted for much of the attention directly on the Obama administration, at 4% of the newshole. Trump appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program talking about a team of investigators he has placed in Hawaii to look into the truth about Obama’s birth certificate. And Obama’s half sister, May Soetoro, was interviewed by Piers Morgan on CNN, where she was asked about the rumors. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Arizona lawmakers passed a bill requiring presidential candidates to present a birth certificate in order to qualify for the state ballot. Together, these items brought renewed attention to a vexing theory that resurfaces seasonally as talk show fodder. The No. 5 story of the week, at 3% of the newshole, was a series of some 200 tornadoes that began on Thursday in Oklahoma that killed at least 45 people and caused millions of dollars in damage.
Newsmakers of the Week There was no question that Barack Obama loomed as the key newsmaker last week, mostly due to his nationally televised speech. That marked a change from recent weeks, including several where Obama was not the top newsmaker (Col. Gadaffi was the top newsmaker during the weeks of February 21-27 and February 28-March 6). The No. 2 newsmaker last week, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, was a key figure in 2% of stories—the first time he ranked among the top five newsmakers since the week of February 7-13, when Mubarak left power in Egypt. Mubarak was hospitalized after experiencing a heart attack. Next was Paul Ryan, at 1% of all stories. Ryan’s budget was passed by the House of Representatives at the end of the week, effectively anointing it as the official negotiation starting point of the GOP for the ongoing debate over federal spending. At No. 4 was Donald Trump, whose potential candidacy got a boost from his perseverance in insisting there were troubling questions to be answered about Obama’s citizenship. The No. 5 newsmaker was Lashandra Armstrong, the mother who drove herself and her children into the Hudson River in an apparent suicide (one son survived the ordeal and swam to shore, alerting authorities). Finally, tied with Armstrong as lead newsmaker in 1% of stories, was Gaddafi, who continued to overpower rebel forces in a Libyan state that increasingly appears to have resisted the humanitarian efforts of NATO forces. 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 April 4-8, 28% of the news links on blogs were about the fallout-literally and figuratively-from the earthquake in Japan, making it the week's No. 1 subject, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Most of the news continued to be discouraging as bloggers spotlighted reports about bodies found at the nuclear power plant and high radiation levels measured nearby. And there was plenty of skepticism about whether Japanese citizens were being told the truth about the catastrophe. But a report that Japan's Red Cross had raised $1 billion, but had yet to distribute any money to victims, drew particular interest and sparked a conversation about ways to find trustworthy charities. The bloggers' continued high level of interest in the earthquake stands as something of a contrast to the mainstream media, which were fixated on Beltway budget fights and devoted only 7% of their coverage to the continuing problems in Japan last week. The second-biggest story, at 25%, was global warming. Specifically, bloggers focused on the surprising Congressional testimony from physics professor and long-time skeptic of climate change science Richard Muller. While Muller was expected to present research in opposition to the prevailing views on global warming, Muller instead stated that his work supported the scientific consensus that a warming planet is a significant trend. Liberal bloggers and defenders of climate change science had a field day with that unexpected turn of events. The subject of global warming has repeatedly been of great interest to social media users. Muller's testimony received virtually no coverage from the traditional press last week, but this marks the 13th time that the subject has ranked among the top five in a given week since PEJ began the NMI in January 2009. In particular, global warming was a major topic of conversation among bloggers in December 2009 when skeptics seized on the "Climate-gate" scandal, when leaked emails from a British climate laboratory raised questions about whether or not weather data had been manipulated. Generally speaking, those who argue against climate change science have dominated these conversations. Last week, however, it was the supporters of climate change science who had the louder voices. The No. 3 story (at 10%) was a much-discussed April 1 Washington Post column by Richard Goldstone, the chair of the United Nation's fact-finding mission on the Gaza war of 2008-09. Goldstone concluded that his earlier report, accusing both Israel and Hamas of war crimes, was based on incomplete information. In the column, he concluded that Israel did not have a policy of indiscriminately targeting civilians during the conflict. Most of the blogosphere reacted by defending Israel and many claimed that Goldstone's original report had unfairly damaged that nation's reputation. The low-key launch of President Obama's 2012 reelection campaign was the fourth biggest subject at 7%. And news that the Obama Administration will not pursue civilian trials for several 9/11 suspects, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but will have them tried by a military commission at Guantanamo Bay, was the fifth-largest subject at 5%. On the social networking site Twitter, the top five subjects involved technology-either the business side or how technology is impacting people's daily lives.
Stories about the business aspects of Facebook, including an advice column on how to land a job working for the online giant, were second at 8%. The results of a survey conducted by Skype suggesting that working from home is becoming more accepted by employers and more desirable for employees was third, at 5%. The No. 4 story (at 5%) was a Mashable piece offering predictions of what the smartphone industry will look like in 2015. One analyst suggested that in the next three years, Microsoft will overtake Apple's lead in the market share of such products. And a short article about how Twitter reverted back to an earlier version of its site during April 5 technical troubles was the fifth subject, also at 5%. Japan More than anything else related to the recovery, bloggers paid notice to a report that Japan's Red Cross had collected $1 billion in the three weeks since the earthquake, but none of it had been distributed to victims. "Unfortunately, this isn't anything new," remarked Project Armannd. "Less than 40% of the $1.5 billion raised by charities for the Haiti earthquake has been spent-and it's already been more than a year since that tragedy. I'm sure we all want the money we donated to be spent wisely, but when it's happening at such a slow pace that it may take months to even begin the process, it kind of takes away from the core purpose of the deal." The news sparked a discussion of how people could most effectively help the cause. A number of bloggers offered suggestions. "Common sense tells us to resist the heart's desire to physically go to the scene; better to give funds to those who know how to organize and manage the relief effort," advised I See My Shoe before referring readers to other trusted sites. "The GiveWell Blog...concludes giving to Doctors without Borders is one of the best ways to ensure funds result in direct benefits to victims. Peace Boat is a Tokyo-based nonprofit that has experience in organizing relief efforts, and is accepting donations as well as volunteers in support of its work in Miyagi prefecture." "If this is making you rethink donating, please read Emily [Co]'s insightful article on how to donate smartly," urged Suzie Leung at Absolutely Fobulous. "She's also organized an amazing Facebook campaign called JustOneCrane (see donation box on the right!). 1000 cranes, 1000 bucks to help heal Japan." For other bloggers continuing to follow news from Japan, the information was overwhelmingly negative. Many seemed resigned to more tragic news to come. "In news all too reminiscent of the BP oil explosion, it looks like this nuclear crisis is going to drag on and on-thanks to a history of failing to meet safety standards and industry-friendly regulators," predicted Suburban Guerilla. Some took note of an April 3 Los Angeles Times article about the discovery of two fatalities at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex. The cause of death was believed to be the impact of the initial tsunami and not radiation. Others questioned information being disseminated about the tragedy when they read the admission from the Tokyo Electric Power Co. that it found 7.5 million times the legal limit of iodine in a seawater sample taken near the nuclear facility. "The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant situation in Japan has gotten so out of hand," wrote Phil Butler at Everything PR. "Misinformation early on, and the continual underestimating of this catastrophe by officials there, right before the world's eyes is astonishing. The only thing more astonishing really is the realization that a worst case scenario is probably closer to the truth than any of us realize." "Here's a level of lying that would make Hitler and Goebbels blush: the Japanese government is assuring it's people that everything is fine, while in the same breath admitting that the radiation level in coastal seawater is 7.5 million times higher than the legal limit," added Lentenlands at SmashABanana. Global Warming When UC Berkeley professor Richard Muller testified on March 31 in front of a GOP-led Congressional hearing on climate science, he was expected to present work refuting the prevailing view about global warming. Muller had been a longtime critic of global warming science and was heading the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, a study funded in part by well-known climate change skeptics and oil billionaires Charles and David Koch. However, Muller surprised observers when he declared that, "We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups." Liberal bloggers reveled in the turn of events. "Muller's testimony must have felt like a slap in the face to the GOP members of the Science & Technology Committee, who were expecting a golden opportunity to scoff at Global Climate Change and urge the increased exploitation of non-renewable energy sources," concluded gummitch at The Zoo. "Be careful what you wish for," chided Chris Carver at Uncommon Sense. "Congressional Republicans seem to be encountering frustrating seeds of reality and truth on many fronts, and their attempts to repudiate the Science of Global Climate Change are no different." Many took extra pleasure in learning that Muller's work had been connected to the Koch brothers, who are known for backing conservative politicians and causes. "Don't you hate it when you pay someone millions of dollars to do a study that global warming doesn't exist and he comes to the opposite conclusion?" jokingly asked The Beehive. "I wonder if the Koch brothers-the same guys who are backing the King of Wisconsin-think their $150K is well-spent. Chump change, I suppose," wrote Catholic Sensibility. "They'll make it up in tax cuts." While in the clear minority, there were a few who were critical of Muller's stance. "Dr Muller betrayed us," announced Baron von Monckhofen at The Climate Scum. "He was not the honest and upstanding no-nonsense scientist we thought him to be."* YouTube The most-viewed news video on YouTube last week was an international soccer match turned bad. The April 2 incident occurred during an African Champions League game in Egypt between Tunisia's Club Africain and the home team, Zamalek. Ahead 2-1, Zamalek appeared to score a third goal only to have it ruled out by the officials. The home fans became so enraged by the call that they stormed the field and forced the Algerian referee to leave. An Egyptian official stated that nine people were injured during the incident which "revived the soccer tension between Egypt and Algeria of the recent past," according to a Reuters report. This is the second time in a month that a rather sobering soccer video has been drawn international attention. During the week of March 7-11, a news report about a soccer player kicking and fatally injuring an owl mascot during a game in Columbia was the lead news video.
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.
Last week, the U.S. news media turned inward. For the first time in nearly two months, a domestic—rather than international—crisis led the news as the threat of a government shutdown (averted at nearly the last second) was the No. 1 story. A closely related topic, the overall economy, driven by Representative Paul Ryan’s controversial 2012 budget blueprint, was the second-biggest topic. The two domestic issues combined to fill 40% of the newshole from April 4-10, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The two overseas events that have been dominating the news in recent weeks—turmoil in the Mideast and the earthquake in Japan—accounted for less than half as much attention (18%). Just one week earlier, those foreign stories accounted for 50% of the overall coverage compared with only 15% for the economy and the threat of a shutdown. The looming government shutdown, avoided with a late-night compromise on April 8, topped the news last week, at 29%. For much of the week, the narrative functioned as a countdown clock to a potential stoppage, zigging and zagging as prospects for a deal rose and fell. Both sides also used the media to amplify strategic talking points, as Democrats portrayed Republicans as fighting over social issues and Republicans depicted Democrats as wavering on spending cuts. The shutdown maneuvering was the top story in four of the five media sectors studied. But as is often the case with a politically charged issue, it generated the most attention by far in the cable news sector—accounting for more than half the airtime, 53%, studied by PEJ. The week’s No. 2 story, at 11%, was the U.S. economy, which prominently featured Ryan’s dramatic 2012 budget blueprint that contains major spending cuts and significant changes to Medicare and Medicaid. The economy was the top story, 21%, in the newspaper sector. The third-biggest story, also at 11%, was the turmoil in the Middle East, dominated again by the civil war in Libya. But the real news is how precipitously coverage dropped from the previous week, when it accounted for 38% of the newshole. Last week marked the lowest level of Mideast coverage since the story exploded in the U.S. media with massive protests in Egypt in late January. The No. 4 subject, at 7%, was coverage of the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Coverage has steadily diminished in recent weeks and is down from 12% the previous week. The fifth-biggest story, at 5%, involved U.S. anti-terrorism efforts with coverage fueled by the news that the U.S. will try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a military court at Guantanamo Bay. The Budget Battles In many ways, last week’s run-up to the last-minute budget deal was a made-for-media event. There was plenty of drama with the looming deadline, there were a few key players to focus on—President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid—and there was constant toggling back and forth between optimism and pessimism.
Pessimism was the overriding sentiment on April 6, when ABC Good Morning American anchor George Stephanopoulos summed up the state of things. “House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid met last night to try and make a deal to avoid this government shutdown,” he said. “But…the prospect for a shutdown on Friday is now greater than ever.” On Friday, April 8, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly addressed the competing arguments over who was to blame for the stalemate: “Some people say money remains the issue blocking a budget deal—how much federal spending to cut. Others say ideology is in play—that conservatives want to cut things like Planned Parenthood and Democrats do not.” O’Reilly made clear his view that Planned Parenthood should not receive government funding. Finally, on Friday night, the two sides announced an agreement to stave off a shutdown, one that entailed $38 billion in spending cuts, but without riders that would have cut funding for Planned Parenthood and some environmental regulation. And the media quickly switched to post-mortem mode. On Sunday April 10, the New York Times asserted that, “both sides are declaring some victories, and details of the full impact of the cuts have yet to emerge.” And the story also evaluated the political fortunes of two principal players.
“Though Mr. Boehner won significant ground and the applause of his caucus, his approach this week—like Mr. Obama’s—carries the risk that some will view him as too conciliatory, as illustrated by the 54 Republicans who voted against an earlier temporary spending bill, forcing the speaker to rely on votes from Democrats to get it through.” But if this year’s budget was the major newsmaker last week, a dramatic 2012 budget blueprint from the Republicans—setting the stage for a battle down the road—accounted for the vast majority of the week’s economic coverage (11%). “House Republicans on Tuesday unveiled an ambitious and politically perilous plan to resize the government and stem the $14 trillion national debt by slashing spending on domestic programs and fundamentally overhauling government health programs,” stated the April 6 Washington Post. “The proposal urges a sweeping transformation of federal health programs that would wipe out funding for Obama's health-care initiative and end Medicare as an open-ended entitlement.”
The reaction, as sampled on MSNBC’s April 6 Countdown show, was largely partisan and predictable. “The possible [GOP] presidential candidates offered polite praise and very careful wording,” declared host Chris Matthews. “Tim Pawlenty said the Ryan plan is offering ‘real leadership.’ Mitch Daniels called it ‘the first serious proposal.’ Mike Huckabee said ‘it’s a start.’ Mitt Romney actually said Ryan is ‘setting the right tone.’ And Sarah Palin said ‘it’s a good start.’” The reaction from the administration was far chillier, with Matthews citing a statement by White House press secretary Jay Carney that the plan “cuts taxes for millionaires and special interests while placing a greater burden on seniors who depend on Medicare or live in nursing homes, families struggling with a child who has serious disabilities, workers who have lost their health care coverage and students and their families who rely on Pell grants.” With the near-term government shutdown averted and Obama slated to lay out his own fiscal blueprint this week, the coming battle over more sweeping deficit reduction may be the next major economic storyline. The Rest of the Week’s News Coverage of the Mideast, which was once again dominated by events in Libya, was down dramatically last week. It generated the most attention in the online sector (15% of the newshole) where it registered as the No. 2 story. A good deal of last week’s coverage involved signs of tension between NATO forces and the rebel fighters they are backing with the rebels complaining about a lack of NATO military support and news of a NATO airstrike that inadvertently hit rebels forces. With no definitive military resolution in sight, the U.S. media appear to be disengaging from the conflict. At the same time, attention to the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake, driven again last week by concerns about radioactivity leaking from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant, continues its downward trajectory. It too, generated the most coverage (11%) in the online sector, which tends to be more oriented toward international news. Last week’s storylines included fears about the safety of seafood coming from Japan. Finally, the fifth-biggest story—the decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a military rather than civilian court—represented a major reversal of course for the Obama Administration. An Associated Press story indicated how much backlash the civilian trial idea had generated. “After months of delay, the administration finally backed off Attorney General Eric Holder's November 2009 announcement that [the trial would be held] in a courthouse just blocks from the World Trade Center site in downtown Manhattan that was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001,” the story stated. “That announcement created intense political opposition among Republicans and ultimately even among some Democrats, particularly in New York.”
Newsmakers of the Week Four of the five top newsmakers last week—two Democrats and two Republicans—were intimately involved with the Beltway budget debates. President Obama was No. 1, a dominant newsmaker in 6% of the week’s stories. (To register as dominant newsmaker, someone must be featured in at least 50% of a story.) Three key legislators came next. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, was the No. 2 newsmaker, registering in 2% of the week’s stories. House Speaker John Boehner was No. 3, also at 2%, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was a dominant newsmaker in 1% of the stories. Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo—who found himself under siege last week as fighting raged in that country—was also a lead newsmaker in 1% of the stories. (On Monday April 11, Gbagbo was arrested by forces supporting Alassane Ouattara, the rightful winner of the presidential election held last November.) 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
The top stories on blogs from March 28-April 1 ran the gamut from the Supreme Court to ancient texts, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The No. 1 story, with 13% of links, was a Supreme Court decision overturning a verdict awarding $14 million to a man formerly on death row. A close second, with 12% of links, was a BBC radio piece by author Zadie Smith arguing against closing public libraries. Tied for third (9%) was a story about the creation of artificial clouds to provide shade for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and an op-ed column about the collapse of Detroit. The final story (5%) involved photographs that may shed light on the early years of Christianity. This assorted mix demonstrates social media's ability to galvanize different communities of interest around topics that may be a bit off the beaten path. It's also worth noting that last week there was considerably less of the ideological tinge to the conversation that often marks the hottest debates of the day. On Twitter, the week was more typical. All the top stories were technology related. Even one that focused on April Fools' Day pranks was actually about online mischief. And for the third week in a row, the No. 1 YouTube news video was of the Japanese earthquake and its aftermath. Supreme Court Decision Many bloggers took issue with the 5-4 ruling by which the Supreme Court overturned a jury verdict that awarded $14 million to John Thompson, a man who had been on death row for murder. Thompson was later declared innocent thanks to a blood test that did not surface during the trial, and he subsequently sued then New Orleans District Attorney Harry Connick, Sr. (father of the singer) for damages. The story was also picked up by the website Gawker, increasing its popularity online. Bloggers contended that the Supreme Court failed to send the right message about wrongful convictions. "They've just given prosecutors a blank check to put innocent people in jail without fear of the consequences. D-I-S-G-U-S-T-I-N-G!!!!" wrote Attaturk at Rising Hegemon. "I'm no legal scholar, and I don't know what constitutes ‘deliberate indifference,'" wrote Alan on Liberaland, "But there's certainly a pattern of defendants getting convicted by Connick's prosecutors, getting sent to death row, and then later getting their death sentences overturned." Legal blogs also picked up on the case, writing straightforward accounts of the case and its implications. Libraries The number two story reflected the often international flavor of the blogosphere as commenters responded to a BBC Radio program in which British author Zadie Smith staunchly defended libraries. The famous author recounted her childhood in a flat surrounded by books even though her family was poor, thanks to the library. Smith's local library was slated for closure for budgetary reasons and she spoke up to explain why this was a travesty. Most of the response was from British bloggers agreeing that libraries are valuable to their communities. "Local libraries are gateways not only to other libraries, but to other lives ..." wrote Andrew King on Downed Robin. "That the grotesque losses of the private sector are to be nationalised, cut from our schools and our libraries and our social services and our health care, in short, from our heritage, represents a policy so shameful, I doubt this government will ever live it down." "My goodness, Zadie Smith has stirred things up. She did a five-minute slot on Radio Four in defence of libraries this morning and all hell breaks loose at the Telegraph. No less than four articles about (well, against) it," wrote Ian Anstice of Public Libraries News, a blog that fights the closure of libraries in Britain. "If you want an informed society, and a society willing to educate themselves and others, cutting funding for public libraries is a bloody good way to prevent that from happening. This government are a bunch of barbarians. It wasn't libraries that caused the financial crisis: it was bankers, cut them instead," wrote Tom Morris (author's emphasis). At least one blogger looked at the issue from an American perspective. "With the budget debates ongoing in Washington and across the country, libraries are often an easy target for politicians who are thinking more about the chopping block of the next two years," wrote Leslie Pitterson of Clutch Magazine, an online publication geared toward African American women. "Zadie Smith's involvement in efforts to save her local library should make many of us think about our own." Ancient Books One of the more detailed discussions last week occurred when BBC Radio released photos of a set of books purportedly found in a Jordanian cave sometime between 2005 and 2007. If the books are genuine, they are expected to shed new light on the early years of Christianity. Many bloggers were skeptical. "I'll offer some reasons for caution in the face of the extravagant claims made by some," wrote Larry Hurtado. "The reported symbols inscribed in the items seem as/more readily to point to a Jewish origin." "If the text can be decoded and confirms the claims about who wrote these books and when, then indeed this could be a discovery of the first importance," wrote Peter Kirk of Gentle Wisdom, "But failing such confirmation the books will be no more than a historical oddity, worthy of a place in 'a Jordanian museum' but not of worldwide attention." "A few of the images that have been made available have letters on them. Can we please get the best minds in the biblioblogosphere, with skills in epigraphy and paleo-Hebrew script, working on providing an initial transcription?" wrote Dr. James F. McGrath at Exploring Our Matrix. Those from less-academic backgrounds, who were focused on religion, seemed more enthused about the findings. "But what really excites me about this whole business is the potential it has to cast an authentic historical light on Christian origins," wrote Andrew Perriman at p.ost, "We little appreciate the extent to which our minds and imaginations-and therefore our reading of the New Testament-have been conditioned by 2000 years of densely layered theological reflection. Perhaps this ‘find' will be like a flash flood that washes away enough of the interpretive sediment to give us a glimpse of-and a feel for-the pre-Christian strangeness of the New Testament story." "This amazing new find could yield some very interesting information about early Christianity," wrote Dave Burkum of Altered Faces, "I'm looking forward to hearing more." The top stories on Twitter, as is often the case, focused on technology and the web last week. The No. 1 story, with 9% of links, was about Google's new +1 service which is explained as a "public stamp of approval." When you "+1" something, your name becomes associated with that link and shows up on your Google profile. Most people who opined on it on Twitter were those who worked in social media-and they were not impressed.
"Until further notice, google +1 reads very much like their @Digg experiment from 08-09," wrote Brian Q Pham. A few people on Twitter found it interesting, though: "Google +1 mass I've game changer, if it an seo and you've not checked out yet. Do so! Immediately."* Wrote Allan Stewart. Tied with 8% of links was a Mashable article about the company's favorite April Fools' jokes online and a study about the "elites" on Twitter. According to a Yahoo Research study, 50% of tweets consumed come from only .05% of all Twitter users. "I've joined the Twitter elite to fight the forces of Evil," tweeted a fake Harry Potter. In fourth place with 7% of links was a story about using Skype in the classroom. Much of the response on Twitter was from teachers or educators. "I signed up for Skype in the Classroom. Have you? As an online teacher, I can think of so many possibilities," tweeted Sandra A. Rogers. "Homeschooling Friends, might be interesting to explore..." wrote Todd Manning. Wrapping up the roster of top subjects was a story about the potential delay of the release of the iPhone 5, with 6% of links. YouTube For the third week in a row, the top video on YouTube was of the Japanese earthquake's aftermath. The almost four-minute video shows a Japanese Coast Guard vessel moving uneventfully in choppy water, a departure from the dramatic scenes of destruction in the previous weeks' videos.
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, PEJ
The
There was a clearer indication of waning press interest in Japan, where the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, most notably the subsequent nuclear emergency, accounted for 12% of the coverage studied. That compares with 15% the previous week and a whopping 57% the week before that. The diminishing coverage may, in part, be attributed to continuing reports about the damaged nuclear plant that are dismaying, but perhaps no longer ominous to an audience outside of Japan.
No Quick Exit in Libya
What started two weeks ago as a mission showed signs of turning into morass, and the mainstream media began scaling back its wall-to-wall coverage last week.
The Rest of the Week’s News
Last week did see a significant jump in coverage of the economy, a boost in part attributable to a combination of sobering housing data and better jobs news.
This 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 March 21-25, fully one-third (33%) of the news links on blogs were about Taylor's March 23 death at age 79, making it the No. 1 subject, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Bloggers were also attuned to the two big international crises last week, which were the No. 2 and No. 3 topics-the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan (25%) and the conflict in Libya, which now involves the U.S. military (18%). High levels of interest in the passing of a Hollywood luminary are part of a trend that has been evident ever since PEJ began the New Media Index in January 2009. Bloggers like to reminisce about popular culture figures. Dom DeLuise, Patrick Swayze, and Leslie Nielsen-lesser celebrities than Taylor-all received significant attention after their deaths. At 33% of the links, Taylor received more coverage on blogs than any other celebrity passing, including pop icon Michael Jackson who generated 27% of the links when he died in June 2009-although the fact that Jackson died later in the week (Thursday as opposed to Wednesday for Taylor) may have contributed to the smaller number. Indeed, Taylor's death was also a major story in the mainstream media last week, registering as the No. 3 subject in PEJ's News Coverage Index.
And as an example of how social media allow for new kinds of interactions online, many bloggers used their sites to link to the Los Angeles Times obituary or to pictures and videos of Taylor available elsewhere on the web. The next biggest topics in the blogosphere last week were the Japanese earthquake followed by the war in Libya, a reversal of the news agenda in the mainstream media where coverage of Libya far exceeded that of Japan. In this respect, bloggers seemed more in tune with the public than mainstream media were. According to the News Interest Index produced by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, considerably more respondents said the situation in Japan, rather than the fighting in Libya, was the story they were following most closely last week. The attention to the recovery efforts in Japan followed several different storylines. Some bloggers focused on the damage to the Fukushima power plant while others were alarmed by the discovery of tiny amounts of radiation as far away as Sacramento. But the story of a Japanese man who rescued his family and others trapped by the tsunami became a source of inspiration amid the despair and fear. The general sentiment from bloggers who discussed Libya, the third-biggest story, was that of skepticism. Writers wondered why the U.S. had undertaken the military mission, and were concerned that other countries in the international coalition would abandon the conflict, leaving the U.S. with the full cost and responsibility going forward. The No. 4 story on blogs, at 10%, was about a 400-pound former sumo wrestler named Kelly Gneiting who completed the L.A. Marathon in just under 10 hours. Gneiting, who jogged and walked the course, may have set a world record as the heaviest person ever to complete a full marathon. And a BBC travelogue video about Ukraine, a country that will host the 2012 European Championships along with Poland, was the fifth-biggest story at 3%. On Twitter, the top stories were a mix, with a heavy emphasis on technology.
In another sign of the ascendancy of social media, the addition of several new words to the Oxford English Dictionary Online-including the online colloquialisms of "LOL" and "OMG,"-was the second-biggest story with 10%. A BBC story about a team of researchers who studied census data and predicted that religion may become extinct in countries such as Australia, Canada, and Ireland, was the No. 3 subject at 7%. News that the professional-oriented social networking site LinkedIn recently passed 100 million users was fourth, at 6%, followed (also at 6%) by an article about an iPhone app created by the World Wildlife Fund that encourages people to take small steps to help the planet every day. An Icon Passes The Los Angeles Times' lengthy obituary for Elizabeth Taylor received a lot of attention from bloggers. Many posted the lead of the piece with a link to the rest of the article, while a few added some brief thoughts. The overall message from the bloggers was that Taylor represented a glamour and celebrity that has largely vanished from the entertainment industry. "It could not have been written better and gives a great insight into the old days of Hollywood," explained Theo Kingma. Other bloggers posted photographs of Taylor from some of her most famous movie roles. Cheers to New Beginnings, for example, highlighted several images including Taylor alongside the original Lassie in the 1946 film Courage of Lassie and one of her as Cleopatra in the epic 1963 film by the same name. And given the ease with which bloggers can now post videos on their own sites, some embedded clips from Taylor's movies. The Los Angeles Times blog 24 Frames devoted a page to videos of five of Taylor's "most unforgettable roles" such as National Velvet and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Some online shared personal reactions to the news. "what horse crazy little girl wasn't inspired by your role in national velvet?" asked Cookie Jill at skippy the bush kangaroo. "i always thought you blossomed into the most beautiful woman in the world. such an amazing and turbulent life you led...but with grace throughout. god speed, liz. god speed."* "The one thing I always admired about Elizabeth Taylor was that even when she went slumming in bad movies or appeared on TV programs that were probably better off not visited she still had this admirable capability to, as I often say, class up the jernt," described Ivan G. Shreve, Jr. at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear. Mostly, however, bloggers wanted to discuss Taylor's unique place in the Hollywood firmament. "Taylor was a strong cookie who endured her fair share of battles. She was a mother of four, a wife, a philanthropist, a businesswoman, a survivor, and a legend," declared Krystal Clark at Right Entertainment. "Some affectionately refer to as ‘the last great movie star' a title we wholeheartedly agree with." "Archie Bunker would say ‘Those were the days!'" wrote MHB at The Exchange. "Movie stars were larger than life and studios carefully managed their image. There was none quite as fascinating to the public as the lovely Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor ho passed away earlier today." "I bet her and Michael Jackson are having so much fun in heaven right now," added CK at Bangs n Cupcakes. Japan Continues to Deal with Tragedy In discussing Japan last week, some bloggers reprinted a Los Angeles Times article discussing various religions' views on the spiritual meaning of tragedies. Others were paying close attention to the attempts to prevent a nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima power plant. A report that the EPA announced that a minuscule amount of radiation from Japan was detected in Sacramento-not enough to cause any harm-also resulted in some strong reaction. "And these traces of radiation from Japan as just the first amount emitted from that nuclear plant...wait til the radiation gets here from the meltdowns," predicted Mike at offmyfrontporch.com. In addition to all the ominous news, one feel-good story emerged. Hideaki Akaiwa, of Miyagi prefecture, decided not to wait for rescue workers to come to his neighborhood, so he gathered some scuba gear and went on his own to find and rescue his wife and mother. And even though authorities have not given an all-clear for Akaiwa's neighborhood, he continued to search through flooded areas to try and find more survivors. Bloggers found Akaiwa's story inspiring. "No doubt many stories of heroism in the face of Japan's recent tsunami will emerge in the upcoming weeks...but the latest is so beautiful and fantastical that it seems primed for a Hollywood movie," shared Nick Lemarr. "This amazing man, whose dress style is being compared to the likes of Rambo continues to navigate through flooded streets, dodging wreckage and hazards to rescue more survivors in his neighborhood," applauded Danielle BZ. "Amazing, this guy is my hero!" YouTube For the second consecutive week, dramatic footage from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of Japan dominated the most popular news videos on YouTube. Last week, four of the top five videos were of the disaster.
The top video, which was posted online by Britain's Channel 4 News, included two minutes of the tsunami rushing into the Miyako City. Within the video, cars are swept away, power lines crash, and houses are completely flooded.
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 eads, 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 s 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. |
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Last week, the Golden State was the focal point of much of the blogosphere's interest. Three separate stories about some form of wrongdoing or impropriety in that state were among the most popular. Two involved actions by California politicians, while one featured a modern method of mourning that appeared morally questionable to some bloggers.
The leading subject, with 16% of the news links, involved rumors that Twitter was in the process of acquiring TweetDeck, a site that is a personal browser where users can design and focus on the tweets and updates they are most interested in. (No sale has taken place at this point.) Some linked to a 
The first authorized
biography of Apple CEO Steve Jobs—due out in 2012—captivated bloggers and
tweeters alike, becoming one of the rare stories to figure prominently in both
social media platforms in the same week.
The top subject, at 10% of the links, was about Google's attempts to utilize the popular video-sharing site, YouTube, which is also part of the weekly NMI. Most of the attention was directed at a 
"The @Google +1 button is another April Fool's Day Joke, right?" tweeted Greg M. Johnson.
two big international stories that have recently dominated the headlines remained at the top of the U.S. news agenda last week. But there were signs that media attention to both of them was beginning to plateau as the U.S. economy re-emerged as a bigger story. 
Taylor became known not only for her screen work but also for her AIDS activism, her style, and her numerous marriages. As they shared their favorite recollections, though, bloggers most often remembered Taylor the actress-whose career peaked in the 1950's and 60's.
The lead subject, with 12% of the links, was phone giant