News Index
Two From November 29 to December 5, the economy accounted for 28% of the newshole studied, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. That represents the most coverage devoted to the subject since the week of March 23-29, 2009 (43%), shortly after Barack Obama became president when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner unveiled his plan to clean up “toxic assets” in banks. Three events drove last week’s economic coverage—negotiations over the fate of the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, the debt commission vote on its proposal to reduce the deficit and a surprisingly gloomy jobs report late in the week. The release of thousands of State Department cables by the WikiLeaks site was the No. 2 story of the week, filling 16% of the newshole in PEJ’s News Interest Index, which includes the front pages of newspapers, a sampling of cable news, talk and news radio, the top stories on news websites, and morning and evening broadcast news programs. This marks the third time since the summer that WikiLeaks’ dissemination of classified documents has been a top five story. (Information about the Afghanistan war accounted for 13% of the newshole from July 26-August 1 and material pertaining to the Iraq conflict filled 2% of the newshole from October 18-24.)
Last week’s WikiLeaks saga included two key components. One was the reaction to the released material and its potential impact on U.S. diplomacy. Another was an intensified focus on the site’s founder Julian Assange, who was called a “high tech terrorist” by one American politician and found himself the target of an Interpol search in connection with a sexual assault case. Attracting significantly less attention, the third biggest story of the week (5%) was the continuing debate over repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for gay servicemen and women. Coverage was driven by the release of a Pentagon report surveying military personnel about the issue and Capitol Hill hearings on the subject. That was followed by the continuing fallout from the 2010 midterm elections, which made up 4% of the newshole studied. Some of the commentary focused on the agenda for the newly strengthened Republican Party. And Afghanistan was the No. 5 story of the week (3%), which included coverage of an attack that killed six Americans and President Obama’s surprise visit to the country on December 3. Taxes, Debt and Jobs With the election season over, the economy has quickly re-emerged at the top of the news agenda. Last week, the subject swept the board, finishing as the top story in all five media sectors studied and generating the most attention (36% of the airtime studied) in radio news. The leading element of the week’s economic coverage, accounting for more than one-third of it, focused on continued maneuvering over the Bush-era tax cuts, with Democrats pushing to raise taxes for wealthier Americans and Republicans advocating for continuing cuts across the board.
With the GOP vowing not to pass any other legislation during the “lame duck” session until a tax deal is reached, the prospects for some kind of White House compromise seemed to grow. Reporting on the December 1 Today show, NBC’s Chuck Todd declared that reaching agreement is “not going to be easy,” but he then sketched its outlines. “Privately, White House aides acknowledge some sort of temporary extension [of the cuts] for everybody will be the compromise,” he added. “The question is how to get all Democrats on the same page.” The next leading storyline revolved around two developments on the deficit reduction front. One was President Obama’s proposed freeze of federal workers’ salaries. The other was the debt commission’s vote on its blueprint for cutting into the deficit, which produced a majority of members in support, but not enough backing to bring the plan before Congress. “The sweeping plan…got eleven ‘yes’ and seven ‘no’ votes,” reported Fox News correspondent Jim Angle on December 3. “That’s short of the fourteen that would have ensured an up and down vote in Congress.” But the story also noted that a majority of the commission members approved the plan and several members expressed confidence that their work would serve to stimulate meaningful action on the deficit. “Both the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ votes agree the nation has to do something to avoid a serious financial crisis,” Angle added. And by week’s end, a disappointing jobs report, which showed the unemployment rate moving up to 9.8% from 9.6%, attracted attention. “In a significant setback to the recovery and market expectations, the United States economy added just 39,000 jobs in November, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, the Department of Labor reported Friday,” the New York Times reported. “November’s numbers were far below the consensus forecast of close to 150,000 jobs added and an unemployment rate of 9.6 percent.” WikiLeaks and Assange If some media outlets wrestled with the question of whether to publish diplomatically sensitive messages last week—New York Times executive editor Bill Keller acknowledged that “this exercise has had its challenges”—the WikiLeaks release ultimately generated major coverage. Just as the economy was the top story in all five media sectors last week, the WikiLeaks saga was the No. 2 story in each sector, generating the most attention (18% of the newshole) in cable news. Initially, the coverage focused on how damaging the leaks might be. On the November 29 CBS newscast, for instance, correspondent David Martin said the disclosure—which included revelations about contingency planning for a North Korean economic implosion, horse trading with other countries over Guantanamo Bay prisoners, suspected arms shipments to Iran and embarrassing evaluations of some foreign leaders—“has left the U.S. mortified that it could not protect its secrets.” On CNN the same day, correspondent Jill Dougherty reported on the State Department view that the leaks could be “very, very damaging.” But CNN commentator David Gergen took a somewhat more sanguine view, declaring that “there's no scandal here. There's nothing here in which we find that the U.S. government has been lying to us as a people.” Later in the week, the spotlighted shifted to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who was the subject of a Saturday Night Live parody and plenty of calls for his arrest on espionage charges. The Department of Justice said it was investigating WikiLeaks and on Meet the Press, Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell referred to Assange as a “high tech terrorist.” In a more favorable assessment on NPR’s All Things Considered, Raffi Khatchadourian, who had profiled Assange in the New Yorker magazine, offered that “Julian's political beliefs aren't necessarily easily categorized as left or right. One insight that became clear to me is that, you know, kind of the defining human struggle for him is between individual and institution.” Part of the story last week involved another kind of legal trouble for Assange. As MSNBC anchor Tamron Hall reported on December 1: “An international manhunt is underway right now for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange…on suspicion of rape and molestation in Sweden, something he denies.” As the manhunt intensified, a New York Daily News twitter feed asserted that Assange was actually seen “bar hopping in Lower Manhattan with a shaved head”—a report that strained credulity. Indeed for the week, Assange was the No. 2 overall newsmaker, trailing only President Obama. The Rest of the Week’s News The third-biggest story from November 29-December 5 was the debate over the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. That coverage was fueled by the release of a Pentagon report revealing, among other things, that 70% of the military personnel respondents surveyed said gay troops would not have a negative impact on the armed forces. The story generated the most attention (11%), on cable news. The No. 4 story, at 4%, was the aftermath of the November 2 midterm elections, which included coverage of Obama’s November 30 meeting with Congressional leaders of both parties and plenty of advice from pundits about how both sides of the aisle should exercise power in the wake of the election. Rounding out the top five stories was Afghanistan, at 3% of the newshole. Battlefield casualties and a presidential visit fueled the attention to a war that generates ongoing coverage, but usually at a modest level.
Newsmakers of the Week From November 29-December 5, Barack Obama was the top headline generator, registering as a lead newsmaker in 7% of all the stories. (To be a lead newsmaker, someone must be featured in at least 50% of a story.) He was followed in the No. 2 slot by WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange (3%). New York Congressman Charles Rangel, who was censured for ethics violations on December 2, was the third-biggest newsmaker, at 2%. Rangel became the first member of that body to be censured since 1983. Mohamed Osman Mohamud, the 19-year-old arrested in connection with a plot to detonate explosives at a Portland Oregon Christmas tree lighting ceremony, was the No. 4 newsmaker, at 1%. Three people tied for the No. 5 newsmaker spot, all at 1%. One was Arizona Senator John McCain, who has emerged as one of the leading opponents of a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Another was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was busy trying to smooth over some of the feathers ruffled by the WikiLeaks release. The list also includes Ronni Chasen, the Hollywood publicity agent who was mysteriously murdered in her car on November 16. That story got more attention last week when Harold Smith, identified as a person of interest in the killing, committed suicide on December 1. Subsequent reports have indicated that authorities now think Smith may not have been involved.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
And, in a rare case of news agenda unity, heavy interest in the new measures cut across all three social media platforms studied in the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. For the week of November 22-26, more than half (54%) the news links on blogs were about the security measures, making it the No. 1 subject. They were also the fourth largest topic on Twitter with 9% of the links. And on YouTube, the new procedures were the subject of the second most popular news video as viewers gravitated to an element of comedic relief produced by a Taiwanese company. Twitterers mainly drew attention to one specific incident concerning a cancer survivor whose urostomy bag ruptured during a TSA pat-down. Links to the story were often accompanied by words of empathy like Emi Lani Lee's, "Feel bad for him," and Billy Shih's, "I'm getting real tired of the TSA." In the arena with the most discussion, the majority of bloggers emphatically agreed with-and even went beyond-two Washington Post columnists, Charles Krauthammer and George Will, who came out strongly against the airport security measures. Krauthammer suggested that the phrase "Don't touch my junk"-words adapted from an objection first uttered by an annoyed passenger in California-had become a new political battle-cry. Will argued that the TSA's measures are nothing more than ineffective "security theater" which do not make passengers safer. Many bloggers made similar points with more direct language, built not so much around personal experiences as passionate feelings about privacy and government encroachment. "Security? Not really," wrote Wake Up America. "Let's not kid ourselves, while it is promoted as the fair approach to force all passengers to equal screening at airport security in the end we are less secure, less efficient and out of pocket with tax $s...The political correctness of today makes a farce of our nation and government." * "If we want to get serious about checking out people who may be a threat to us, it is perfectly obvious to anyone with a lick of common sense that a three-year-old Texas girl poses no danger," added Ari Armstrong at Free Colorado. "In our era threats come from a small minority of those with ties to the Islamic world." "These new TSA policies and procedures are political ‘security theater', completely worthless in providing any actual security. The public ‘will tolerate only so much idiocy,'" argued GD Critter. "The only solution is to disband the Transportation Security Agency and turn their responsibilities over to someone who at least has some concept of what the responsibility entails." Some critics linked to an investigative USA Today report about companies which make body scanning equipment that have more than doubled their expenditures for lobbying Congress over the past five years. "This whole x-ray thing is nothing but a money making scam and the ‘pat downs' being so intrusive will certainly cause many people to opt into getting the x-ray, thus more machines will be needed and more people will line their pockets at our expense," predicted Mountain Sage. While in the minority, some bloggers challenged critics' arguments as short-sighted or hypocritical. "Like most who favor profiling," wrote Raul Ramos, "Mr. Krauthammer is vague about who should be targeted by the TSA. But you can bet CK thinks those being profiled should be people who do not look like him. However, profiling is more than institutionalized prejudice. It's also dangerously stupid." And Bob Cesca at The Huffington Post offered, "It's not a stretch to suggest that the post-9/11 fear-mongering and massively exaggerated anti-terrorism hysteria created this supermajority of acquiescence to flagrant government overreach and violations of privacy and personal dignity...When you're detained and forced to either submit to a naked body scan or, heaven forbid, have your ‘junk grabbed,' thank a Republican." And those bloggers who did share their experiences in the "pat-down" line, reported them as not so bad in the end. "I went through the full body scan at Houston Intercontinental Airport on my way to Bangkok and I had the pat-search on the way back at airports that did not have the scan," recalled Prairie Pundit. "I did not think either was any big deal and they both took about the same amount of time, although the pat down may have been a little quicker. It seems like a reasonable response to the underpants bomber attempt by al Qaeda in Yemen." YouTube The same security controversy was also a significant subject on YouTube last week as the second most-viewed news video was an animated news report by a Taiwan-based company called Next Media Animation, or NMA. The company regularly creates news reports about the most popular subjects of the day. The videos have Taiwanese narration, often with English subtitles, and feature a humorous and exaggerated take on the news. Many of their reports have gained significant attention online such as their August video about Steven Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who abruptly quit his job and fled his plane using the emergency exit.
In the airport security report, NMA describes Americans outraged over the increased security measures and portrays TSA employees as reckless and perverted workers. At one point, a nun is shown drop-kicking a TSA employee as an example of rebellious anger being expressed by many Americans.
Other Major Social Media Stories Among the other stories that bloggers highlighted last week were three international topics and an update about a woman who first gained attention by questioning the President. The No. 2 subject on blogs, at 18% of the week's links, involved several articles about the international sport of Formula 1 racing. One such story was a BBC report about a driver, Mark Webber, who made a claim that his sponsor Red Bull favors another driver more than himself, thus sparking a media controversy.
A series of stories over the last few years about British police was third at 13%. These historical reports became popular now in the blogosphere because of current protests over tuition increases for the country's university and secondary schools. Bloggers linked to older news reports to illustrate a history of inappropriate tactics used by police to subdue protestors, such as a 2009 BBC report about a review of tactics used by police during the G20 summit and a 2007 story about two protestors who lost their lawsuit against London police resulting from actions occurring during protests A Washington Post column by former President Jimmy Carter about how the U.S. should handle complex relations with North Korea was fourth at 4%. That was followed (also at 4%) by news that Velma Hart, the woman who gained national attention at a September forum for telling President Obama that she was exhausted defending him, lost her job due to financial cutbacks at the nonprofit organization where she worked. On the social networking site Twitter, once again technology stories dominated the week. The top story, with 16% of the links, was a Mashable how-to report about ways people can use social media to enhance events and conferences. Suggestions included "help attendees connect with each other," "broaden participation," and "encourage attendees to share information." A list of accessories for the iPhone camera was second at 13%. That was followed by a story about Rupert Murdoch's newest foray into media with his iPad-only news publication, called The Daily, at 12%. The controversy over TSA screening procedures was fourth at 9%. And two stories about Twitter, one a preview of Twitter's analytics service and the other an interview with Twitter's Creative Director Doug Bowman, combined to finish fifth at 7%.
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.
The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism did not publishing a full Weekly News Index report for November 22-28, 2010. PEJ is, however, making the data available. View the week's Top Ten Story List
Even with no major new developments or numbers to report, the economy remained the top story in the news l
Finally, the congressional ethics hearings of New York Rep. Charlie Rangel made up another 5% of the week’s news. Rangel was convicted of 11 counts of wrongdoing, and in a display of pique, walked out of the hearing before it was through. On Nov. 19, he became the first House member in nearly 30 years to be recommended for censure.
Debate over Economic Policy For the second week in a row, the economy topped the news, finishing as the top story in three media sectors—radio news (20%), newspapers (12%) and online (8%). The coverage included a mix of storylines, with the prominent ones focusing more on policy matters than the ups and downs of the marketplace. The federal deficit was one of these subjects, as analysts continued to debate the merits of the Obama-appointed national debt commission, a topic that received prominent media treatment the week prior. Some of the criticism of the commission, including complaints from members of Obama’s own party, persisted. On the November 15 broadcast of CNN’s Parker Spitzer, New York Rep. Anthony Weiner bemoaned what he perceived to be the failure of the Democrats to protect the middle class: “I think to some degree it’s the opposite of leadership to appoint these commissions and say ‘all right, I’ll see what they come up with,’” said Weiner.  Another portion of the economic coverage dealt with the Bush-era tax cuts. Political talk show hosts in particular dominated that discussion of whether the Obama Administration should extend all or part of the cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 (they expire at the end of December). On November 17, liberal commentator Ed Schultz used his radio program to castigate Rep. Michele Bachmann for portraying the targets of tax increases aimed at those making over $250,000 as struggling small business owners: “We’re in search of carpet layers who make $250k,” proclaimed Schultz. “Do they exist in the Minnesota 6th district? She’s nuts.” Conservative talk host Rush Limbaugh, like Schultz, took to some name calling in the debate about tax cuts as well: “Just cut some marginal tax rates and get out of the way and let the American people in the U.S. economy revive it themselves. That’s how it always happens, and it will again, if these eggheads just get out of the way.” New TSA Rules U.S. attempts to prevent terrorism ranked as the top story in cable TV last week (15%), and as the No. 2 story in three other sectors, radio (15%), network (10%) and online (8%) The majority of that coverage focused on the rollout of new search procedures at many of the nation’s airports. One passenger named John Tyner became a populist symbol for those who object to full body pat-downs and x-ray screenings on privacy grounds when his video, documenting his own airport indignities, went viral. One site that picked it up, the Huffington Post, posted the entire exchange on its site on November 15, consisting of three videos totaling about 30 minutes in length. But a Washington Post story, posted online on Nov. 16, cited a CBS poll finding that 81% of those surveyed had no objections to the new screenings. In other terrorism-related news, last week marked the verdict in the trial of Ahmed Ghailani, the first Guantanamo Bay prisoner to be tried in civilian court. Ghailani was acquitted on all but one of more than 280 criminal charges, leading some to question whether terror suspects should be tried in those courts. More Election Fallout The midterm elections, which were No. 3 overall for the week at 9%, were the No. 2 story in cable (14%) and newspapers (10%). , Continued coverage of election results revealed some interesting power dynamics within the Republican Party. When GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky—considered by some a consummate insider—surprised many by supporting a ban on earmarks, his change of heart was attributed by some as further evidence of the tea party’s clout within the GOP. Shepard Smith, anchor of the Fox News program “Fox Report,” described the ban on November 16 as “a priority of the tea party movement … but until yesterday was opposed by the GOP leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell in a debate that analysts said threatened to split that Party.” The program went on to air footage of tea party favorite Rep. Michelle Bachmann praising McConnell for having heeded the tea party message. But some bad news for the tea party came with Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski’s apparent write-in victory over tea party candidate Joe Miller, a coda to the meticulous vote counting that had gone on for days (Miller had defeated Murkowski in the Republican primary.) As NBC News correspondent Kelly O’Donnell said on the Nov. 18 Today show, “Against all odds, Lisa Murkowski put voters through an election day spelling test, and she scored big.” Another theme to the post-election coverage last week was the realignment of the House leadership teams, with current House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s election to the minority leadership position and Minority Leader John Boehner’s election to become the new Speaker when the next Congress is sworn in.  The Rest of the Week’s NewsMuch of the coverage of the conflict in Afghanistan, No. 4 at 7% of the newshole last week, offered some relief from the ongoing violence as the nation honored a veteran for his service. On Nov. 16, President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor to Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta, the first living service member from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to receive it. The event was covered live by all three of the major cable networks. The medal was given in recognition of a day three years earlier when Giunta, ambushed and under fire in Afghanistan, chased down two Taliban soldiers carrying his wounded comrade away and rescued him. Finally, rounding out the top stories of the week, at 5% of the newshole, was the corruption trial of New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel, who was found guilty of 11 ethics violations by a House subcommittee. Rangel’s flair for the dramatic in no small part kept him in the headlines. At one point, Rangel made a tearful plea for leniency. And when found guilty, he walked out of the committee hearing room, saying he had no money for a lawyer. Newsmakers of the Week To some extent, Barack Obama was out of the media’s glare last week. While still the top newsmaker from November 15-21, he appeared as a dominant factor in 6% of all stories, less than the 10% the week before when the president took a pounding in the press on a number of issues—from the debt commission to his troubled Asian summitry. (To be considered a lead newsmaker, someone has to appear in at least 50% of the story.). In rebuttal to the notion that all press is good press, New York Rep. Charlie Rangel held the No. 2 newsmaker spot last week, featuring prominently in 5% of all stories. Rangel’s ethics violations and his emotional reaction to them provided plenty of attention by the media, not much of it very flattering. On a more positive note, the next two biggest newsmakers generated attention for an event many had been anticipating. British royal officials announced on Tuesday, Nov. 16, that Prince William (No. 3, at 4% of stories) became engaged to his longtime girlfriend Kate Middleton (No. 4, at 3%). Overall, the news of their upcoming royal wedding was the week's seventh-biggest story, at 4% lf the newshole. Ahmed Ghailani was the No. 5 newsmaker last week, at 2% of all stories. Ghailani, a Guantanamo detainee, was the first one to be tried in federal courts. He was convicted of one count, conspiracy to blow up American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. 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 November 8-12, 17% of the news links on blogs were about global warming, making it the No. 2 subject, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. This marks the 10th week since the NMI began in January 2009 that the subject has ranked among the top five stories on blogs. In the past, climate change skeptics dominated the discussion. But last week, it was the believers - and they rallied behind news that 700 scientists are about to become more aggressive advocates for that view. Global warming hit the blogosphere in full force last year, starting with the week of October 12-16, 2009, when bloggers cited the BBC report What Happened to Global Warming? The report, which noted that 1998 was the warmest year recorded globally and that there has been no increase of global temperature since, received fully 50% of the news links that week and even remained a hot topic the following week, as the No. 2 story. Skeptics dominated the conversation again from November 23-27, 2009, with the emergence of the now famous "climate-gate scandal," in which the e-mail system of a prominent climate research unit was breached by hackers. Global warming skeptics took some of the language in the e-mails to imply that the scientists were misleading the public. The topic made the list again, at No. 2, from November 30-December 4, 2009, after Fox News reported on a United Nations document advocating that global warming become a prominent issue on the world stage. Bloggers seized on that document as evidence of an ulterior motive behind the push to fight climate change. This year, a BBC interview with Phil Jones, the scientist whose e-mails were uncovered, drew response from bloggers on both sides of the issue weighing in. Then, from the week of March 29-April 2, 2010, global warming skeptics rallied again in response to another BBC interview with a scientist who warned that the planet's climatic changes were in an unpredictable pattern. Last week however, supporters of global warming science were out in force to applaud the idea of a more active role for scientists. "I'm really happy to hear this," wrote Suburban Guerrilla, "Because Democrats can't quite seem to organize much of anything these days and climate change is too important a cause to leave it to the GOP wolves." "Scientists to the rescue, woohoo!"* wrote Ted Compton. "It's damn well about time and perhaps way past it," said Chris R. at The Localizer Blog. "The earth is round and global warming is real," wrote JEL at Capital Green, "one day you'll believe." "I suggest zapping [congressional conservatives] with a shrink ray," joked Terry Canaan at Gripper News, "because, come on, you're scientists. Republicans don't know who they're messing with here." Still, a few global warming skeptics chimed in. "I look forward to the opportunity to debate a scientist from the other side who actually knows what they are talking about," wrote Dr. Roy Spencer, "I've gone one-on-one with some speakers who so mangled the consensus explanation of global warming that I had to use up half my speaking time cleaning up the mess they made." Although global warming and the environment have been significant topics in social media, they have not garnered as much attention in the mainstream media. In a study conducted earlier this year, PEJ found that between January 2009 and January 2010, 4% of the top stories on blogs were about the environment as a whole, while only 2% of the traditional press newshole covered the environment. And so far in 2010, according to PEJ's News Coverage Index, global warming has made up only 0.3% of the mainstream media newshole. The Rest of the Bloggers' Roster The No. 1 story on blogs this week (21% of links), was a November 10 USA Today article about federal workers' salaries increasing tenfold in the past five years and doubling since Obama took office. Most of the bloggers complained that the private sector was funding these high public salaries. In third place, at 17%, were stories about several Grand Prix races. The next two topics focused on the economy. A mix of stories about the Obama administration and the economy came in with 12% of links, including an op-ed by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and Obama's defense of the Fed's $600 billion bid to revive the economy. An op-ed written by Nancy Pelosi that talked about Democratic achievements ranging from Wall Street reform to aiding small businesses came in 5th, with 6% of links. In both of those economic topics, the majority of bloggers attacked President Obama's handling of the economy and Pelosi's recap of her party's achievements. On YouTube: The DeFranco Phenomenon Philip DeFranco, a self-made star on YouTube, once again ended up on the list of most popular YouTube news-related videos last week. The Nov. 2 edition of The Philip DeFranco Show was the fourth most-viewed video, with 626,695 views. DeFranco produces several shows on YouTube, ranging from the daily Philip DeFranco Show, where he discusses pop culture and news, to his personal vlog, where he talks about his life. He also has branched out, creating a spinoff show with a different host, Toby Turner, LikeTotallyAwesome that discusses video games, movies and technology and Cute Win Fail, which shows videos of things that are adorable, great or failures. DeFranco, or sxephil as he is known on YouTube, describes himself as a "6 foot tall 24 year old Italian from Bronx, NY" who wanted to be a doctor when he grew up, but stumbled upon YouTube one day when he was bored. After discovering he had "a decent ability to convey [his] thoughts" he made his first web videos in September 2006 and gained thousands of viewers on YouTube. In 2008, DeFranco's fans voted him the Sexiest Geek in a Wired online poll. And as of November 2010, he had 1.3 million subscribers to his YouTube channel and over 52 million channel views. DeFranco's videos are punctuated by frequent jump cuts that make them feel quick. The show features the host talking about things (some of them not particularly sophisticated) that interest him - from the internet to women to politics and even to raising awareness and funds about polycystic kidney disease, which he has. He poses questions to his audience, asking them to respond in video or comment form. Most of the videos run about four or five minutes and seem to be filmed from his home. The most-viewed video last week (799,788 views) was of a gay, Italian politician, Nichi Vendola, responding to President Silvio Berlusconi who was quoted saying, "it's better to be passionate about beautiful women than to be gay." The second video was a skit from the German comedy group Die Aussenseiter, followed by a comedy "news" show from another German group, Hamburger Hanger. Rounding up the top five was a clip from the Mexican show, Venga la Alegria, discussing a singing competition show.
Twitter On Twitter last week, as is frequently the case, the top stories reflected the platform's function as a means of disseminating information about new developments in technology. The most popular story this week, with 21% of links was about Google. People reacted to the news that Google was providing its employees with a raise and a $1,000 holiday bonus. Google also announced that it turned off its GMail data feed to sites like Facebook. Twitter's integration with Ping, Apple's iTunes social network, came in second place with 12% of the links. And a story about the Center for Public Integrity's debut of an HTML5 project that is attempting to bring tablet-style reading to any browser was third with 10% of links. Two subjects came next, each generating 9% of the links. One was a story about a guidebook to pedophilia that people successfully rallied to get taken off Amazon.com. The other was a Mashable story about the social media platform Seesmic's changing focus.
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. Thanks to Carolina Gutierrez and Harriet Guskin for translation assistance.  There are moments in media when all narratives point in the same direction, when the press seems to see events with an almost singular vision. Such a moment arrived for President Obama last week.
Driven by the ideas from President Obama’s bipartisan debt commission, and the vocal reaction to it, the U.S. economy supplanted the midterm elections atop the mainstream news agenda last week for the first time in two months. From November 8-14, the economy accounted for 15% of the newshole according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. About half that coverage focused on the draft proposal from the National Commission for Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which—in calling for some tax increases and spending cuts—generated criticism from the left and the right. The No. 2 story, at 12%, was the continuing fallout from the Nov. 2 congressional elections—which produced major Republican gains—with the narrative reinforcing a moment interpreted as a stinging rebuke for the president. Obama’s trip to the G-20 summit and Asia registered as the third-biggest story last week, filling 9% of the newshole. Much of that coverage highlighted the president’s inability to secure a trade deal with South Korea and an apparent failure to ease economic tensions with China. Indeed the media narrative last week portrayed a weakened president continuing to be buffeted by events from all sides. His commission’s suggestions on deficit reduction were nearly drowned out by widespread criticism of them. The election coverage highlighted the road ahead for newly ascendant Republicans in Washington and in state houses. And the message coming out of the Asian trip was of deals not consummated and expectations not met. To make things worse, the events on the foreign trip seemed to come as a surprise for a White House that by week’s end was being derided for not knowing what would await the President overseas. One story on the Politico website—headlined “Obama arrives home to new reality”—tried to tie those themes together by declaring that the president’s “time overseas also underscored the trouble he’s having with the nitty-gritty of governing.”
Two very different subjects rounded out the top-five story list last week. It wasn’t exactly the Love Boat as the saga of a disabled Carnival cruise ship—with several thousand passengers on board—was the No. 4 story at 4% of the newshole. Rescued passengers told of overflowing toilets and scarce food supplies. Next, also at 4%, was President George W. Bush’s new memoir media tour—which included interviews with people ranging from Matt Lauer to Rush Limbaugh. The book itself appeared not to break much dramatic new ground. In the first week in November, Bush made news for acknowledging he had approved the waterboarding of terror suspect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. One attention-grabbing nugget last week was a reconciliation of sorts between Bush and rapper Kanye West. In his book, Decision Points, the ex-president criticized West’s denunciation of him as someone who “doesn’t care about black people.” Last week, West offered a mea culpa for remarks made in “frustration” in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The Debt Commission Last week, coverage of the economy led in four media sectors—newspapers (12%), network news (14%), cable (20%) and radio (31%). And the leading economic storyline, by far, was the debt commission blueprint released on November 10. That outline, which included a number of proposals that will face tough political sledding, generated an immediate reaction—and it wasn’t very favorable. In the November 10 CBS newscast, correspondent Chip Reid declared that, “In the fifty-page draft proposal, pain is everywhere.” Ticking off provisions such as cutting 200,000 federal jobs, more than $100 billion in defense cuts, a reduction in some Social Security benefits, moving the retirement edge up from 67 to 69, and ending the mortgage interest deduction for more valuable homes, Reid summed up the mood on Capitol Hill. “The knives are already out on both sides of the aisle,” he said. And talk shows from both left and right political poles seemed to bear that out. On Keith Olbermann’s November 10 MSNBC program, Democratic Congressman Anthony Wiener said the commission is “going to propose, essentially, eliminating Social Security COLAs, cutting Medicaid, cutting the home mortgage deduction, which for middle class families is really the only big one that they get any break on…So, this is very bad…” From the right, Fox News host Sean Hannity also objected, asserting that, “If people thought the stimulus, TARP and the auto bailouts were bad, we have a deficit commission. They want to gut the Pentagon, raise taxes. And I don’t hear anything about economic growth in this.” But at least some commentators saw the deficit suggestions as an opportunity for the president to prove that Washington can tackle difficult problems, as did Gloria Borger in a CNN.com column headlined, “A chance for Obama, Congress to lead.” The Elections If the early responses to the deficit proposals were one difficulty for the president, the election post-mortems were another.
A PEJ study of the media’s initial post-election message—both on mainstream and social media platforms—found that no single narrative reverberated throughout the news ecosystem in the immediate aftermath of the results. But by last week, the biggest chunk of coverage—more than one-third—focused on the path ahead for victorious Republicans. A November 8 New York Times story focused on the GOP agenda at the state level. “Republicans who have taken over state capitols across the country are promising to respond to crippling budget deficits with an array of cuts, among them proposals to reduce public workers' benefits in Wisconsin, scale back social services in Maine and sell off state liquor stores in Pennsylvania…" the story noted, adding that Republicans gained about 700 seats in state legislatures and added at least five more governor’s offices. Another aspect of the Republican story last week focused on the role the tea party would play in Washington. Last week that narrative took the form, in part, of favorite Michelle Bachmann’s decision to vie for a House leadership position. A November 8 USA Today story quoted Bachmann saying, "It isn't that I need to be in the leadership. It's the ideas and ideals of the Tea Party that are important and need to be represented at the table." A few days later, however, she ended her bid to become Republican House Conference chair. A smaller, but still significant element of last week’s coverage involved the impact of the elections on Obama himself. There had been a raft of analyses assessing whether the president seemed to get the message from the election, dissecting his post election remarks and wondering whether he would opt for compromise or a more combative style going forward. Yet at least one analyst suggested much of the post-election speculation was premature. Appearing on MSNBC’s Hardball on November 11, Democratic strategist Mark Penn said it will take the White House some time to respond to the public verdict on November 2. “The real question people have…is how is he really going to answer what the voters said on Election Day,” Penn noted. “It took Bill Clinton months to really formulate that answer. Don’t expect things overnight.” The G-20 Summit Often presidents with difficulty at home find refuge abroad. That made the week that was all the more painful for the President. Obama’s trip to Asia was the top story last week in one sector, online at 13% of the newshole studied. And the news wasn’t good for the White House. A November 10 Washington Post story on an Obama speech in Jakarta Indonesia—a city where he lived as a boy—noted the president’s eroding popularity, overseas and at home as well. “Obama received a warm welcome from the crowd of about 6,500 at the University of Indonesia,” the story stated. “But Muslim views of Obama around the world have worsened in several countries…and in the United States, a recent Pew Research Center poll found that nearly one in five Americans thinks the president is a Muslim, in part because of the time he spent here as a child.” The more damning press narrative, however, came in the aftermath of what the media saw as a largely unsuccessful summit for Obama. The November 12 headline on the New York Times read: “Obama’s Economic View is Rejected on World Stage,” while the Washington Post’s sub headline declared, “Obama, weakened after election, wields less influence.” “It’s already being called an embarrassing setback,” declared NBC anchor Brian Williams on NBC’s November 11 newscast. In the accompanying report, correspondent Lee Cowan talked of the “inability of the president to secure that free trade deal with Korea” adding that, “despite increased tensions with China over their currency manipulation, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of movement there either, sparking fears of a trade war.” The week ended with the ultimate indignity coming from some old Washington insiders. The Washington Post Sunday Outlook section led with a piece by political strategists Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen suggesting that Obama announce he would not seek re-election now so that he could get more done in the remaining two years. The Rest of the Week’s News The disabled cruise ship—which returned safely to San Diego on November 11 after three days adrift without power—was the fourth-biggest story last week, at 4%. It generated the most coverage, 11%, on network news and the narrative was fueled by tales of unappetizing conditions aboard the vessel. One traveler told the press that the main diversion was “getting smashed off warm beer.” The George Bush media tour was close behind, also at 4%, and generated the most coverage in the online and network news sectors (6% of the newshole.) Those appearances marked the first extended public emergence of the former president, who has largely kept a low profile since leaving office in January 2009. For the most part, Bush was one of the few newsmakers in politics last week who largely avoided talking about Obama.
Newsmakers of the Week With the focus on his trip to Asia, Barack Obama was the top figure in the news from November 8-14, appearing as a lead newsmaker in 10% of the overall studies. (To be considered a lead newsmaker, someone has to appear in at least 50% of the story.) The next biggest newsmaker, well back at 3%, was the man he succeeded in the White House, George W. Bush. Steven Hayes, who was sentenced to death last week for murdering three family members in a 2007 Connecticut home invasion, was the No. 3 newsmaker, at 2%. He was followed, also at 2%, by Nancy Pelosi, the current Speaker of the House who has stated her intention to run for minority leader in the new GOP-controlled chamber. The fifth-leading newsmaker (1%) was Elizabeth Smart, who last week testified at the trial of the man accused of kidnapping her from her Utah home in 2002 when she was 14 years old. The case attracted a good deal of media attention at the time as did her rescue a year later. Smart was tied by another familiar name among headline generators, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (1%). About the NCI PEJ’s weekly News Coverage Index examines the news agenda of 52 different outlets from five sectors of the media: print, online, network TV, cable and radio. (See List of Outlets.) The weekly study, which includes some 1,000 stories, is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics the media are covering, the trajectories of that media narrative and differences among news platforms. The percentages are based on "newshole," or the space devoted to each subject in print and online and time on radio and TV. (See Our Methodology.) In addition, these reports also include a rundown of the week’s leading newsmakers, a designation given to people who account for at least 50% of a given story. Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ
During the week of November 1-5, bloggers across the board roundly rejected that kind of strategy. The idea came in an October 31 column by David Broder and attracted more than a third (35%) of the news links on blogs that week, making it the No. 1 subject according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.
In the piece headlined “The War Recovery,” Broder—a longtime Washington observer with generally moderate views—wrote about ways that President Obama could bounce back from a difficult 2010 election to win a second term. Although Broder wrote he “was not suggesting that the president incite a war to get re-elected,” he also declared that if Obama spends the next two years “orchestrating a showdown with the [Iranian] mullahs…this will help him politically” and the “economy will improve.” Online criticism of Broder’s piece produced a kind of blogosphere bi-partisanship and unanimity rarely seen on crucial political and policy issues. Some argued that the idea of starting a war for political or economic reasons was immoral. Others offered that if additional government spending would help the economy, the spending could be on things like infrastructure rather than military conflict The second-biggest subject on blogs last week, with 17% of the links, was the November 2 elections and the political consequences for Obama, the overwhelmingly No. 1 story in the mainstream media. While much of the traditional press coverage focused on Washington’s changed political landscape in the wake of major Republican gains, the bloggers’ conversation focused more narrowly on columns that criticized Obama’s performance. Most of that attention was to a piece by Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, written prior to Election Day. These bloggers, like Krauthammer, were overwhelmingly critical of the President. Another Washington Post column, this one by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, ranked third, at 13% of all links. In the column, Bernanke explained why the Federal Reserve responded to the economic crisis with “strong and creative measures.” The complex discussion that followed in the blogs split between those who feared Bernanke’s actions would lead to inflation and those who supported the more aggressive federal response. The No. 4 subject, with 10% of the links, was the October 30 Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, D.C., led by comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. The rally, which drew about 200,000 people according to some estimates, received mixed reviews. Some bloggers supported Stewart’s vocal criticism of the news media and polarizing politicians while others felt it was nothing more than a liberal gathering in disguise. The same rally was also popular on YouTube, with Stewart’s closing speech being the third most-popular clip last week. The No. 5 story on blogs, at 8%, was a BBC report about a female boa constrictor snake that scientists claim had 22 baby snakes with no father, thus making them “virgin births.”On the social-networking site Twitter last week, all five of the top subjects focused on tech news and were based on reports from the website Mashable. 
The No. 1 story, with 11% of the links, focused on a new feature for Microsoft’s Hotmail which will allow users to receive and send emails from other email addresses, including ones from Gmail or Yahoo Mail. According to Mashable, Hotmail is the most popular email service, but it is facing competition from others like Google and Yahoo. A report about a new ad for T-Mobile’s wireless network that makes fun of AT&T’s slower network speed was second at 9%. At 7%, the third story alerted fellow Twitter users of a new mode for the iPhone game, Fruit Ninja. The popular game allows players to smash imaginary fruit on their phone’s screen. That was followed by a report (at 7%) that Apple is planning on tripling the length of iTunes’ music previews from 30 seconds to 90 seconds and a preview of Dell’s new tablet computer, the Inspiron Duo, which will feature a full QWERTY keyboard (also at 7%). The Broder Backlash While David Broder’s October 31 column was not focused entirely on a potential war with Iran, it was that section that provoked anger throughout the blogosphere. “I realize Washington Post columnist David Broder’s expiration date came and went some time ago,” summarized Dan Kennedy at Media Nation. “But suggesting that President Obama prepare for war with Iran in order to boost his re-election prospects is surely a new low.” A number of bloggers questioned the ethics of such a proposition. “Nowhere in the article does Broder question the morality of rattling war sabres in the name of economic growth,” wrote JJac at the Richmond Tea Party blog. “I am deeply troubled by the ease with which he suggests it, seemingly ignoring that fact that ‘rising tensions’ sometimes leads to actual war, with other people’s children sent off to kill and die in some foreign land.” “Politics inevitably will play a role in war, but that role must come after the decision to wage war has been made on apolitical grounds,” declared Publius at The Fourth Branch. “The same is true with economics. Broder gets the process exactly backwards.” Others said that there were different ways to increase government spending, which could help the economy without going to war. “War is NOT the answer to our economic problems,” stated Jim Luke at EconProph. “The only way war can help economically is by increasing government spending dramatically. If we could do it for a war, then we can get the same benefits without the dead bodies, the broken families, and the destruction just by focusing our spending here on constructive stuff. David Broder should be fired.” “This from a person [Broder] who has consistently opposed government spending and other Keynesian ideas for stimulus as inappropriate,” agreed Linda Beale at ataxingmatter. “War, he appears to think, is ok, but government spending on major public infrastructure is not? Now that is crazy.” Many further questioned Broder’s role in the political conversation. “In spite of his institutional stature, Broder’s mental capacities have in recent years come into question and his op-ed in the Washington Post on Sunday provides yet another occasion to wonder what is going on inside this man’s brain as he pushes for war against Iran,” asserted Paul Woodward at War in Context. The Elections and Obama Five days before the mid-term elections, conservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer criticized Obama for being a divisive figure responsible for his party’s impending losses in Congress. Democratic pollsters Patrick H. Caddell and Douglas E. Schoen expressed a similar sentiment in a column condemning Obama for using the politics of polarization and resentment. Conservative bloggers jumped in with their own attacks on the president. “The great Charles Krauthammer wrote a column yesterday that really should hit home for what's left of Obama's supporters,” blogged DJ Tablesauce at Third Base Politics. “Quite the uniter this president is,” remarked Kini at E Māua Ola i Moku o Keawe. “A democrat congress that dominates every bit of legislation. Unwilling to work with the Republicans on any legislation. They passed that monstrosity called Obamacare…Yet, Obama allowed No Compromise, No Republican Ideas, and Passed this crap sandwich against the will of the American people.” “Democrats have to find someone to blame for Tuesday's debacle,” predicted DrC at COTTonLINE two days prior to Election Day. “President Obama will be their target-in-chief. The blame-shifting has already begun…They [Caddell and Schoen] accuse him of behaving in an unpresidential manner, and of further dividing the country. These are probably fair criticisms.”
YouTube The most viewed news video on YouTube last week was a six-minute animation created by a site called Xtranormal which turns written text into movies. The video features two talking animated creatures and is clearly intended to ridicule the viewpoints expressed by many in the tea party Movement.
The second video was
another edition of the popular You Tube-based series called the Philip DeFranco Show
where DeFranco talks directly to the camera and expresses his opinions on
subjects ranging from the press to smart phones to pop culture.
An excerpt from Jon
Stewart’s October 30 Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear was the third most-viewed
news videos on YouTube last week. The comedian’s twelve-minute closing speech
to the crowd was viewed almost a million times. Among his critiques during the
speech, Stewart derided the press for promoting divisiveness. “The country's 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems,” Stewart declared in the clip. “But its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen. Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire…If we amplify everything we hear nothing.”
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’s culmination of the hotly contested 2010 midterm election season proved to be the biggest story in two years, filling 57% of the newshole from November 1-7, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. Indeed, coverage of the historic election—which turned control of the U.S. House over to Republicans and was characterized as a “shellacking” by President Obama—registered as the fourth-biggest weekly story since PEJ began its News Coverage Index in January 2007. The others all involved the 2008 presidential campaign. The Democrats’ nominating convention and the surprise announcement of Sarah Palin as the GOP vice-presidential nominee filled 69% of the newshole from August 25-31, 2008. As the media scrambled to become acquainted with Palin, the story filled 58% from September 1-7, 2008. And on the week that Obama became the nation’s 44th president (November 3-9, 2008), election-related themes filled a whopping 76% of the newshole. Last week, as Republicans gained about 60 seats in the House and six in the Senate, the narrative shifted away from the numbers to bigger questions. Analysts painted a picture of a weary, angry and divided electorate, and questioned the prospects for compromise and a working relationship between the chastened president and a new Republican leadership in the House.
And the tea party, which generated considerable media attention in the run-up to the voting, took something of a back seat in the post-election coverage. In some of the races that generated significant coverage—the Nevada and Alaska Senate contests, for example—the media narrative pointed to the problems for tea party candidates Sharron Angle and Joe Miller. No other story last week generated more than a fraction of the attention of the election. The state of the U.S. economy was No. 2 and made up 7% of the week’s news as October labor statistics revealed little change in the nation’s dismal employment situation. Two bombs found in cargo planes on October 29, whose origins were traced to Yemen and whose destination was the U.S., remained the No. 3 news subject last week, filling 5% of the newshole. At No. 4 was the Haiti-bound Tropical Storm Tomas, which triggered coverage enumerating the woes of a country beset by natural disasters, disease and political upheaval. The storm, which did minimal damage to Haiti, made up 2% of the week’s coverage. Finally, a post-election presidential trip to Asia—including India and Indonesia—made the news at No. 5 (2%). Unfortunately for Obama, however, much of the coverage focused on rumors that the trip would cost taxpayers $200 million a day, an allegation debunked by numerous media outlets. The Election Week Trajectory: From Polls to Post-Mortems
The midterm elections easily dominated each of the five media sectors studied last week. They filled about half the newshole in newspapers (45%), online (47%) and on network TV (55%). The politics-oriented cable networks devoted fully 75% of the air time studied to the elections, and radio—which includes ideological talk programs—devoted 64%. Much of what happened on November 2 matched what analysts and pundits had predicted. Republicans picked up at least 60 seats, allowing them to assume control of the House of Representatives, while the addition of six U.S. Senate seats left that chamber in the hands of the Democrats, albeit more narrowly than before. The week began with the traditional media election run-up of polls and projections, but soon settled into a period of taking stock of the new political landscape. On the day before voters rendered their verdict, many reporters walked through the latest polling data. NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd, on the Today Show for example, discussed an NBC-Wall Street Journal survey suggesting that the Republicans would pick up anywhere from 50 to even 70 seats in the House. The media also spent the day highlighting key races, such as the close battle between Sharron Angle and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada. Reid proved to the No. 4 campaign newsmaker last week, showing up as a lead newsmaker in 3% of the election stories. (To be a lead newsmaker, a figure must be included in at least 50% of a story.) On November 2, some media outlets quickly tried to make sense of the election results as they were coming in. On MSNBC, Hardball host Chris Matthews proclaimed the “death of the moderate wing of the Republican Party.” AP writer Erin McClam saw voter letdown in a story that also appeared on the Yahoo News home page that day: “On an Election Day that seemed a long way from 2008, disappointment was the theme.” The days after the election yielded more long-range assessments of the new playing field in Washington. Some outlets focused on House Minority Leader John Boehner, widely expected to assume the mantle of House Speaker. On the November 3 broadcast of ABC World News Tonight, correspondent Ron Claiborn described Boehner as the “fiery leader of the Republican opposition,” but went on to describe his humble Midwestern roots. On Nov. 4, Brett Baier of Fox News interviewed Boehner and asked him about the Republican agenda in the coming two years. “We’re going to do everything we can to stop this [health care] bill from being implemented,” said Boehner. But even more than Boehner, the media’s attention seemed to center on President Obama, whose party took a beating in an election viewed by much of the media as a referendum on his tenure. The Nov. 4 New York Times featured a close-up image of a downcast Obama on the front page, the caption reading “President Obama, at a news conference on Wednesday, sounded conciliatory after the Republican victories but not contrite.” Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, on his new prime-time CNN program, described Obama as a “chastened president” and said “yesterday was a dark, dismal day for the White House.” Obama was indeed the lead election headline generator, registering as a lead newsmaker in 15% of the midterm stories. And some post-election analyses raised the question of whether a divided Washington could accomplish anything in the next two years. A Nov. 4 Los Angeles Times story seemed doubtful: “The political center, where swing voters reside and compromise happens, is suddenly a much smaller part of the Washington landscape,” the story stated..” And a November 5 Wall Street Journal article, echoing Boehner’s comments to Baier, predicted there would be little attempt at compromise in the months to come: “Republicans in Congress, emboldened by their party's gains in the midterm elections, signaled Thursday they would give little ground in negotiations with President Barack Obama and Democratic lawmakers over taxes and other policy.” Lost, to some extent, in the post-election pondering last week was the tea party narrative—as other themes emerged in the coverage. Indeed, the role of the grassroots conservative movement in the midterms accounted for less than 10% of the election coverage studied last week. The Rest of the Week’s News The sheer volume of election coverage squeezed out most other stories last week. The state of the U.S. economy occupied its familiar spot as the No. 2 story of the week, accounting for 7% of the newshole. Nearly half of that coverage parsed the findings of October employment statistics, which revealed no major breakthroughs. About 150,000 jobs were added that month, but the unemployment level remained stuck around 9.6%. More details emerged last week about the two cargo bombs that had originated in Yemen, making that close call the No. 3 story of the week at 5% of the newshole—where it ranked the week before. News outlets reported that one of the packages was de-fused a mere 17 minutes before it was set to detonate and the ramifications for U.S.-Yemen relations were an additional subject for analysis. At No. 4 for the week was Tropical Storm Tomas, whose Haiti-bound trajectory tapped into another media narrative, that of the poverty-stricken nation that cannot catch a break. Coverage of the storm occupied 2% of the newshole last week. A story that turned a sliver of the media’s attention away from the midterm election results made the news at No. 5 (2%)—Obama’s trip to South Asia. If the White House hoped the shift in focus would result in a positive media narrative for the president, false rumors of a $200 million daily price tag for the trip helped dash that. (The media seemed to spend as much time addressing and debunking those rumors as it did reporting on the events of the trip last week).
Newsmakers of the Week Each of the top newsmakers last week was a key player in the midterm elections. President Obama, who was the top newsmaker of the week, featured prominently in 10% of all the stories examined. Many election analysts pinned the burden of Democratic losses on Obama, as did some members of his own party who spoke to the press. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader John Boehner were the No. 2 and No. 3 newsmakers last week. Pelosi, the focus of 2% of all stories, made the news for her somewhat surprising announcement that she would seek to retain her House leadership of the now-minority party. Boehner, also the focus of 2% of the overall stories, was the subject of profiles and interviews, as the media sought to reintroduce the man who will be third in line for the presidency. Harry Reid was the No. 4 newsmaker of the week (1%), having bested his tea party-endorsed rival Sharron Angle in a race in which many analysts thought the Republicans squandered a good opportunity to gain a seat. Lisa Murkowski, the No. 5 newsmaker (1%), was another candidate whose apparent victory tempered the power of the tea party narrative. Her conservative opponent Joe Miller, once favored to win the Alaska Senate race, looked by the end of the week to have lost the initial vote count to Murkowski, a moderate Republican who ran as a write-in—although there is a good chance the recount, and possible legal challenges, could drag on for some time. 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 The final stretch of campaigning before the Nov. 2 elections resulted in the biggest week yet for midterm coverage, with political controversy and turmoil emerging as key themes. For the week of October 25-31, the midterms accounted for 42% of the newshole, up from 38% the week before, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. Coverage of this story almost equaled that of the biggest weekly story of the year, when passage of the health care reform bill filled 45% of the newshole from March 22-28. Certain aspects of the media’s campaign narrative carried over from previous weeks, including attention to close U.S. Senate races and negative campaign tactics. But also present this week was a focus on specific races where tea party candidates faced potentially damaging controversies. In addition, the coverage homed in on two cases in which Democratic candidates bucked their party leadership. As evidence of the dominance of the campaign in the news agenda, the No. 2 story for the week (the economy at 6%) accounted for only about one-seventh as much coverage as the midterms. While there was no overriding economic theme last week, the press continued to cover the questionable foreclosure practices that had been exposed around the country. A thwarted terror plot—interception of Chicago-bound packages containing explosives—was the third-biggest story (at 5%), despite the fact that news broke late in the week, on October 29. The two packages, which were found in the UK and Dubai, were coming from Yemen and targeted for Jewish houses of worship. After many weeks of negligible coverage, the Gulf oil disaster was once again in the news, this time as the No. 4 story. The media reported on the findings of a federal commission that Halliburton, contracted to work with BP, knew before the explosion that the cement it used to seal the well was inadequate. Coverage of the findings accounted for 3% of the week’s news. Finally, the war in Afghanistan generated attention (3% of the newshole) when President Hamid Karzai publicly addressed reports, first published by the New York Times, that his country has been accepting money from Iran.
The Midterms Grow Tense Once again, the midterm elections topped the news agenda in every media sector studied by PEJ. True to form, this was especially the case in cable (57%) and radio (56%), two sectors that are home to a number of ideological talk shows. As the finish line drew near, with a number of races hanging in the balance, the media chose to focus on a few controversial tea party candidates, as well as drama within the Democratic Party, as tensions between candidates and party leadership were exposed. The Alaska Senate race generated interest thanks to Lisa Murkowski’s resurgence as a write-in candidate (Murkowski lost the Republican primary to tea party-backed Joe Miller). On NBC’s Today Show on October 25, Chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd offered this analysis of the race: “It is fairly fluid, but I can tell you this: there are a lot of Republicans here in Washington that are privately glad that Lisa Murkowski’s bid is going so well, because now, judging by how well Joe Miller’s performed on the trail, there’d have been a big fear that the Democrats might’ve been able to steal this race.” It became a difficult week for Miller after a judge ordered the release of his personnel file from his days as a local government attorney, revealing that he had been disciplined for an ethics violation. MSNBC’s liberal host Ed Schultz seized on that during his October 27 show to say of Miller, a West Point graduate: “You’d think he’d know right from wrong.” Both Miller (No. 2) and Murkowski (No. 4) were among the most-covered campaign newsmakers last week—based on the number of election stories in which they appeared as a lead newsmaker. (To register as a lead newsmaker a person must be featured in at least 50% of the story). Kentucky GOP senate candidate Rand Paul—another tea party endorsee—became enmeshed in controversy when one of his supporters stomped on the head of a member of the liberal activist group, MoveOn.org outside a debate. The response from the left was swift—such as the Huffington Post’s carriage of the incident on video—and aggressive, such as the ad by Paul’s opponent, Democrat Jack Conway, that made extensive use of the footage.
The media did not neglect the headaches for Democrats, either. Rhode Island’s Democratic candidate for governor, Frank Caprio, made headlines when he said on a radio show that President Obama can “take his endorsement and really shove it” after he learned that Obama would not be endorsing anyone in the race. In another case of internal tensions within the Democratic Party, Florida Democratic senate candidate Kendrick Meek publicly rebuffed former President Bill Clinton’s request that he drop out of the race. On October 28, Politico reported that Meek had agreed to exit the race and throw his support behind independent candidate, Governor Charlie Crist in the effort to defeat tea party candidate Marco Rubio, but changed his mind. Politico described Meek as a “staunch Clinton ally.”On the October 29 broadcast of CBS’s Early Show, Meek denied, in an interview, ever having agreed to drop out of the race. “Ever since I won the primary,” said Meek, “the Crist campaign has been trying to get me out of this race.” Meek was the No. 3 campaign newsmaker last week, just behind Joe Miller. The Rest of the Week’s News The economic news of the week was a mixture of several themes which accounted for 6% of the newshole. The media continued to follow the foreclosures debacle, as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced an investigation into whether mortgage companies cut corners. Other news reports illustrated various aspects of “the new normal” in the American economy including people postponing retirement and spending less. The No. 3 story appeared late in the week, when officials located two packages on cargo planes containing explosives that were bound for the U.S. President Obama made the announcement on October 29, stating that the investigation found that the packages were addressed to Chicago synagogues, and that they were believed to have been sent by al-Qaeda. Coverage of the discovery, though late in the week, still managed to fill 5% of the newshole. News about the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster (at 3% of the newshole) reappeared among the top stories after a long hiatus. A federal commission investigating the spill found that Halliburton, which contracted with BP, knew about weaknesses in the cement used to stabilize the well weeks before it exploded, but took no action. News about the revelation drove the spill to the ranks of the top five stories for the first time in nearly three months. The last time the subject ranked among the five leading stories was the week of August 9-15, when a storm delayed efforts to finish drilling a relief well. Finally, a New York Times report that Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai receives money from Iran drove coverage of the No. 5 topic, the war in Afghanistan. Karzai held a press conference in which he sought to play down the significance of the cash, saying that the U.S. knew about it as far back as 2002, and that his country accepts money from a number of sources, including the U.S. Afghanistan news accounted for 3% of the coverage last week.
Newsmakers of the week As is usually the case, President Barack Obama was the top newsmaker from October 25-31, registering prominently in 7% of all the week’s stories. Obama’s attempts—including some campaigning and an appearance on the Comedy Central program The Daily Show—to support his party in the midterms focused some of the media’s attention on him, including questions of whether his support is helping Democratic candidates. (The Rhode Island governor’s race is a case in point.) Three midterm candidates were among the top overall newsmakers last week, another indication of how much attention the media are paying to the elections. One of these was Alaska Republican senate candidate Joe Miller (No. 2, at 2% of all stories). At No. 4 was Florida Democratic senate candidate Kendrick Meek (1%). At No. 5 was Miller’s opponent Lisa Murkowski, the Republican write-in (1%). The No. 3 newsmaker of the week was Farooque Ahmed (also 1%), who was arrested on charges that he was part of a scheme to set off bombs in the Washington, D.C. Metro system. 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
The No. 1 topic, at 17% of the links from October 18-22, stemmed from O'Donnell's comments during an October 19 debate, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. In the debate she questioned an aspect of the First Amendment, asking, "Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?" A day before, in Reno, Nevada, Palin proclaimed that her supporters couldn't "party like it's 1773" until Washington is full of like-minded conservatives. Those remarks ranked No. 3 for the week at 8% of the links. Both quotes provoked pointed and partisan commentary from bloggers. Liberal bloggers belittled O'Donnell's question about church and state, saying it illustrated her ignorance of the Constitution. The blog response in this case came primarily from conservatives rising to Palin's defense. After a few commentators on Twitter mocked Palin's reference to the year 1773, conservative bloggers jumped in, accusing Palin's critics of not knowing that that was the year of the Boston Tea Party. The election was also the biggest story in the mainstream media, but with a focus on campaign strategy surrounding individual races rather than choice quotes. The second-biggest topic on blogs last week, at 14%, was an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of Yukos, the Russian oil company, who has been in prison since 2003 on fraud charges. Khodorkovsky wrote of hopes for a new political generation in Russia that will not accept corruption. Numerous Russian-language blogs picked up on the story, offering a Russian translation and adding their thoughts. Tied for third place was an op-ed by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post deriding President Obama as an "intellectual snob" who "resorts to reductionism, explaining his opponents away." Bloggers from both the left and right chimed in, disagreeing about the merits of the column. And the No. 5 story last week, receiving 8% of links, also generated substantial coverage in the mainstream media-NPR's firing of Juan Williams for his remarks about Muslims on Fox News. Most of the response to Williams' comments-that he gets "worried" and "nervous" when seeing people in "Muslim garb" on planes-came from liberals critical of Williams. With 11% of links, the most popular story on Twitter last week demonstrated a homemade technological feat: an iPhone and HD video camera launched 100,000 feet into the atmosphere by a weather balloon. Cinematographer Luke Geissbuhler and his son launched the device and then tracked it till it landed in a tree 30 miles from its launch location. Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo. Twitter reactions were positive and almost awestruck: "Coolest iphone/tech/geek story I've heard in a while," wrote @francis_aldana.* "Wow!" said @NickJunior and @dylan_jones noted, "Such a cool dad, video is wicked."
Another Mashable article that quoted Steve Jobs talking candidly about the state of Apple and its competitors attracted 8% of the links. The No. 4 story (7% of links) evaluated why most music startups are destined to fail. Some twitterers found the news bleak: "This is really depressing but spot-on," wrote @gwachob while others saw it as a call to rally, "Someone needs to stand up for startups!!!" said @chaitters. And in fifth place (7% of links) was Mashable's report that Facebook changed its algorithm so that former romantic partners no longer show up in its "Photo Memories" box. O'Donnell and the Constitution During a campaign debate in Delaware, Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell asked her Democratic opponent Chris Coons: "Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?" Coons responded that O'Donnell's question "reveals her fundamental misunderstanding of what our constitution is." Bloggers were quick to agree. "This is embarrassing," wrote Pendulously. "We have naturalized citizens who have not lived here since birth nor graduated from college or high school who know more about our Constitution that it appears [O'Donnell does]," wrote Jill, a freelance political analyst from Writes Like She Talks. "Those Tea Partiers who love their Constitution so much might want to learn what it actually says," wrote Steve Greene, a professor of political science at North Carolina State University and self-described liberal, on his blog Fully Myelinated. "This is what happens when a person is raised by religious fanatics to believe nonsense, and this disturbing ignorance is by no means unique in the modern GOP; in fact, it's nearly universal" wrote Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs. At least one blogger defended O'Donnell. "I think it's pretty clear from the part of the exchange I have seen...that she had in mind the argument by some conservatives that the intent of the First Amendment was never to prohibit the insertion of some religious elements into public schools and public life, and that the courts have gone too far in that regard" wrote Neo-Neocon. Palin and Partying Across the country, in Reno, Nevada, Sarah Palin gave a speech to her supporters, telling them that they couldn't "party like it's 1773" until conservatives were in the majority in Washington. A handful of people tweeted her quote (including Markos Moulitsas of the liberal Daily Kos), making fun of Palin's use of the year 1773. Conservative-leaning blogs picked up on this; agitated that "intellectually superior leftists" (in conservative pundit Michelle Malkin's words) were unaware that the Boston Tea Party occurred in 1773. "Lefty insta-meme: Idiot Sarah Palin doesn't know that the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776!" mocked 1776 Coalition. "The problem is, as everyone with a fifth-grade level of historical literacy knows, that 1773 was the year of the Boston Tea Party," scolded Atomic Nerds. "The lesson we can learn from libs," explained Van Helsing at Moonbattery, "Don't sneer until after you've figured out what you're talking about." There were a few liberal bloggers who opined on the backlash that came from the conservative blogosphere. "And if we are going back to 1773, does that mean Russia gets Alaska back?" joked Jamie at Intoxination, "Hey - at least Sarah Palin could truthfully say she ‘can see Russia from her house.'" YouTube The most popular news video on YouTube last week, with more than two million views, was purported footage of UFOs over Manhattan. Later in the week, there were reported sightings of similar lights in the night sky in both El Paso, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona. The second most-viewed video on YouTube, also with more than two million views, was a speech from openly gay Fort Worth City, Texas Councilman Joel Burns. In the speech, Burns spoke of the challenges he faced growing up gay, but then explained how his life eventually improved, imploring LBGT youth to resist suicide. "Give yourself a chance to see how much life will get better," pleads Burns in the video, fighting his way through tears. The third most-viewed video on YouTube last week was a set of several clips from the New York state gubernatorial debate in which fringe candidate Jimmy McMillan of the Rent is Too Damn High party rants that...rent is too damn high.
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. A special thanks to Vadim Nikitin for his translation assistance. |
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topics dominated the news agenda last week. Attention to the economy reached its highest level in 20 months and a major document dump cemented WikiLeaks’ status as a significant newsmaker.
Anger and frustration over the 
in 2001.
ast week as the media settled into a kind of post-election holding pattern. 
the No. 4 story last week (at 7%), with the bulk of the coverage devoted to a rare event—a Medal of Honor being bestowed upon a living U.S. soldier for the first time since the Vietnam War. The award ceremony was covered live by all three major cable news outlets.
Amidst mainstream press headlines of an angry and divided
electorate, the blogosphere last week suggested there is at least one thing
people across the political spectrum agree on: Going to war with Iran to boost
the U.S. economy is a troubling idea.
The Paul campaign immediately condemned the incident and cut ties with Tim Proffitt, the individual charged in connection with the incident
The next four topics on Twitter all came from Mashable. Ranking second (9% of the links) was the outlet's report that