News IndexThe front page of the April 18 Virginian-Pilot bore stark testimony to the April 16 events at Virginia Tech. Under a large ribbon of mourning and the words “in memory of,” the rest of the page was devoted to a roll call of almost all 32 victims of the deadliest shooting spree in U.S. history. On page 7, the paper ran photos and bios of the dead, a feature eerily reminiscent of the New York Times’ post-9/11 “Portraits of Grief.” If the carnage in Blacksburg, Virginia did not match the scale or breadth of the attacks of 9/11, it was nonetheless an almost unfathomable tragedy that delivered a deep shock to the nation’s psyche. And it attracted a level of media coverage—reserved for mega-events that instantly make history books—that dwarfed any other story this year.Last week’s reporting and commentary on the Virginia Tech massacre accounted for more than half (51%) of all the news coverage from April 15-20, according to PEJ’s News Coverage Index. By way of comparison, the year’s second second-most covered story—the debate over President Bush’s Iraq “surge” decision from January 7-12—filled 34% of the newshole that week. In every media sector the Index examined, the campus disaster generated a record level of coverage. It consumed 50% of the radio airtime, 62% of the network TV newshole, and a remarkable 76% of cable news programming. (That was the first time any story this year consumed at least half the newshole in any media platform.). Even the newspaper front pages and online sector—which typically tend not to focus as intensely on one story as television does—devoted 27% and 37% to Virginia Tech, respectively.Moreover, the events surrounding Cho Seung Hui’s rampage dominated media attention in a week full of events that normally would have attracted major coverage. The second biggest story overall was the U.S. attorneys controversy fueled by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s contentious April 19 appearance before Congress. But at only 6% of the overall newshole, it was dwarfed by the Virginia Tech saga. Events on the ground in Iraq were punctuated by a series of horrific April 18 attacks that killed more than 200 people. But the week’s third biggest story attracted only 5% of the coverage. The 5-4 Supreme Court verdict on April 18 upholding the “partial birth” abortion ban—a crucial ruling on a polarizing culture war issue—was the fifth biggest story ( 3%). A massive Nor’easter that was responsible for at least a dozen deaths was number six at 3%. The April 20 hostage drama that resulted in two deaths at the Johnson Space Center in Houston was the eighth biggest story at 2% and the second biggest on cable at 6%. But it paled in comparison to the disaster in Blacksburg. And the firing of talk host Don Imus—which was the leading story for week of April 8-13—was completely overshadowed last week, plunging from 26% to 1%. PEJ’s News Coverage Index is a study of the news agenda of 48 different outlets from five sectors of the media. (See a List of Outlets.) It is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics the media are covering, the trajectories of major stories and differences among news platforms. (See Our Methodology.) Like almost any story of this magnitude, the coverage of Virginia Tech killings was driven by several major story lines that emerged at various points in the week. Early on, a good deal of the media focus was on the school’s actions and decision-making on the day of the rampage. As the days progressed, the attention turned to the issue of student privacy rights and mental health facilities on campus and eventually, to the issue of the Virginia Tech community trying to heal. And as often occurs in these mega-stories, the media’s behavior itself became a significant theme of the coverage—in this case when NBC aired parts of a deeply disturbing video/manifesto sent by Cho Seung Hui. What soon followed was a heated debate over journalistic ethics and the often blurry line between news and sensationalism. On NBC’s April 18 nightly newscast, when the network first aired the video, anchor Brian Williams stressed that “We are sensitive to how all of this will be seen by those affected and know we are, in effect, airing the words of a murderer here tonight.” Initially, the impulse to air the controversial video carried the day. Parts of the same footage appeared on all 12 of the cable news shows included in the PEJ sample the evening of April 18. The next morning, on April 19, all three of the network morning shows continued to air the footage. By then, however, the debate over the video was beginning to percolate. NBC’s “Today Show” discussed the fact that some Virginia Tech students had cancelled their scheduled interviews with the network as a result. As the day progressed, each outlet pulled back on the use of the video—but to different degrees. Those who did use the video often did so within a story examining the issue of whether to air it or not. By Thursday night, some of the cable shows were showing brief excerpts of the videos while others were not showing anything at all. And by Friday morning, it appears that almost all of the TV outlets decided to stop airing the footage. Online, however, it is harder to take back content. Videos were made available on major web sites and by Thursday morning (if not before) any person who was searching out the footage could find it through links on CNN.com, Yahoo News, MSNBC.com, and AOL News. Typical of the intra-media debate was the April 19 edition of MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country.” Commentator Craig Crawford supported airing the footage saying, “I just firmly believe it’s the role of the media to get the information out there for society to figure out what to do with it.” Countered pundit Matthew Felling: “I think the copycat angle in this story is something that we cannot ignore.” An April 20 USA Today story quoted NBC News President Steve Capus saying he “knew there would be some backlash…raw nerves exposed everywhere and true pain being felt.” But he added that “it would have been wrong to sit on this video...and not put it out there.” The story also quoted a man who lost a son in the Columbine High School massacre saying, “the timing is terrible. It was really irresponsible of NBC to do this…two days before the Columbine anniversary.” If the media’s motives and methods were ripe for examination last week, so were the forces and factors that drove the 23-year-old South Korean native to such a destructive rampage. One of the early efforts was a report during the April 17 edition of PBS’s “NewsHour,” (the entire show was devoted to the Virginia Tech tragedy) in which Cho Seung Hui was described as “a person on the periphery” and as someone nicknamed “question mark man” by his college classmates. Striking the same theme, his Virginia neighbors recalled him as a “mysterious person…who did not respond even to the most routine of greetings.” Journalists spent the rest of the week trying to solve the difficult Cho Seung Hui puzzle—and coming up with much the same kind of profile. An April 20 Boston Globe story characterized him as someone who, from an early age, was “seemingly trapped behind an intense shyness and unwillingness to communicate that caused ridicule and isolation.” The story quoted school acquaintances who described him as an object of curiosity and sometimes scorn among his peers. As the week wore on and the scope of the tragedy seemed to sink in, some of the earlier more aggressive angles to the media’s coverage began to soften. The initial concerns about whether Virginia Tech had acted effectively to protect its students seemed to quiet, at least temporarily. The gun control angle—which had the potential to become a hot button issue—failed to really catch fire, perhaps because politicians seemed wary of seizing on the issue. And by week’s end, some of the coverage had pivoted to the beginning of the healing process—and on a palpable yearning on campus for some semblance of normalcy. In an April 20 report on NPR’s “Morning Edition” a Virginia Tech spokesman said, “We cannot let this horror define Virginia Tech. We’ve got to do whatever we can to try to get this place on its feet again.” Those sentiments may also include a desire for a respite from the relentless glare of the national media spotlight. In that same report, the NPR correspondent described a hand-lettered sign that had been erected on the school’s drill field. “VT stay strong,” it said. “Media stay away.” Mark Jurkowitz and Paul Hitlin of PEJ Note: The Tuesday morning CBS radio headlines were not included in this week's sample because the stations we normally record were broadcasting a press conference relating to the Virginia Tech shootings rather than their normal headlines.On April 9, Dan Abrams found himself in what had to be an uncomfortable situation as the substitute host of Scarborough Country on MSNBC. The cable channel star, who is also MSNBC’s general manager, was faced with the prospect of having to talk about the suspension of his morning show host, Don Imus, for making racially insensitive comments on air. But rather than dodge the issue, Abrams took it head on … and then used it to play offense against a rival channel. “People have every right to be angry, insulted and hurt by Imus’s comments, and Imus himself has said they have every right to call for his resignation,” he announced. But then he added. “The one set of instigators who should be ignored are our friends over at Fox News, who have made this part of an ongoing political campaign against MSNBC over everything and anything they can find.” Fox News, he went on, hardly has “clean hands” in the debate over civil discourse. “Last year one of its hosts clearly encouraged more white people to have babies after reporting about the increase of minority children in this country,” Abrams said. In the talk show universe last week, Abrams was just one of many hosts to use the Imus story as a jumping off point for their own particular agenda. In Abrams case, it was inter cable news channel rivalry. But for others it ranged from arguments about free speech, feelings about inflammatory language, to anger against the perceived hypocrisy of Al Sharpton. In the talk universe, Imus was a Rorschach test. In total, more than 60% of the minutes on the cable and radio talk shows were about Imus, according to PEJ’s Talk Show Index for the week of April 8 to 13. That makes Imus the biggest story encountered since the Talk Index began in early January. The next biggest talk story we have ever measured, Iraq policy, filled 48% of the airtime the week of January 7. The Imus story also received more than double the percent of newshole in the Talk Index than in the more general News Coverage Index of the media overall (26%). The next biggest talk story last week was the legal vindication of the Duke Lacrosse team which received about 8% of the total minutes. It was followed by the immigration debate which rang in at 7% and the continuing discussion of Iraq policy which received 4% of the talk time – the lowest amount devoted to Iraq since the Talk Index began. Rounding out the top five was the U.S. attorney controversy which scored 3% of the time. The Talk Show Index, released each Friday, is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics are most frequently dissected and discussed in the media universe of talk and opinion—a segment of the media that spans across both prime time cable and radio. (See About the Talk Show Index.) PEJ’s Talk Show Index includes seven prime time cable shows and five radio talk hosts and is a subset of our News Coverage Index. The Imus story was a slightly bigger subject on cable TV talk than on talk radio. One reason was that MSNBC, which used to simulcast Imus’s radio program for 3-and-a-half hours each morning, felt it necessary to devote a great deal of time to the topic. Still it showed up as a topic on every show – a rarity in the Index. Some hosts, particularly early in the week, seemed to show some sympathy for “The I-man” and saw him as the victim of a feeding frenzy. On his Monday show, liberal talker Ed Schultz offered something short of a defense of Imus, but less than a condemnation. “No one in America is defending Don Imus, and they shouldn’t. But I think it’s a sad day in America when a person can’t apologize anymore. I mean who’s got the sincerity meter?” Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly, on the other hand, used the opportunity to make known his dislike of NBC and its President and CEO Jeff Zucker. “It’ll be interesting to see if NBC now will stop the hate that they’ve been peddling in on their cable networks for two years,” O’Reilly said on the telephone from Trinty College in Ireland where he was receiving an award from a philosophical society. “Jeff Zucker has consciously moved his cable networks into assassination the characters of people that they don’t like for ratings.” O’Reilly said his show would now take the people who use offensive speech, especially gangster rappers, to task. “I wouldn’t want to be Snoopy Dog right now,” the host said using a diminutive of the rapper’s name. He also said he wouldn’t want to be Ludacris or Fifty Cent “because every move they make is going to be on the Factor.” For conservative radio talk show host Michael Savage, the culprits were Al Sharpton, liberalism and Hillary Clinton. Liberals, he said, had abandoned their belief in free speech, and Sharpton had gone after Imus at Hillary’s urging. “The left is filled with martinets today who are more concerned with sensitivity than truth,” Savage told his audience April 13. After criticizing Al Sharpton as a “street thug” and a talk show host with poor ratings, Savage said Sharpton wasn’t “the real issue.” He acknowledged that Imus’s comments were “stupid and racist” but said Imus lost his job because of Hillary Clinton. “I believe Sharpton was told by Hillary to go after him and go after him tooth and claw.” Liberal host Randi Rhodes seemed more irritated with what she perceived as the singling out of Imus. “I don’t understand. Why him?” Rhodes said on her April 10 show. “Of all the hate speech I’ve heard on talk radio, all the grotesque stuff I’ve heard.” She then went on to criticize Mike Savage and Neil Bortz before playing a clip of Bortz criticizing Mohammed. Rhodes, however, was not above singling out Imus herself for his appearance, urging him to use his time off to get plastic surgery. “This is a guy if you took Bea Arthur’s hair and put it on Arlen Specter’s head, with Andy Rooney’s eyebrows, that’s what Don Imus looks like.” As a guest on Larry King Live April 11 (which is not included in the talk index), former talk show host Al Franken quickly turned a question about Imus to whether CNN should have kept Glenn Beck on the air after he asked Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, who is a Muslim, if he was working with terrorists. As the week wound down, the public seemed to think the Imus story was overplayed – 57% of the public thought the story received too much coverage according to the most recent News Interest Index from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Even some of the talkers seemed a little burned out on the topic. Conservative Tom Sullivan, who was subbing for Rush Limbaugh, said there very little left to say about the issue, yet predicted “this won’t be the end of Don Imus.” And Ed Schultz, the liberal who had tried to excuse Imus earlier in the week, was almost apologizing for still talking about the topic. “I’m not a fan of the Imus story,” Schultz said. But he argued he had to keep focusing on it because it simply wouldn’t die. He criticized politicians, particularly Hillary Clinton who apparently made the Rutgers controversy the lead of her Web site, for making flogging the issue “It’s not over the top, but it’s getting real close.” “Enough is enough.”
Top Ten Stories in the Talk Show Index 3. Immigration - 7%4. Iraq Policy Debate - 4% 5. Fired US Attorneys Controversy - 3%6. 2008 Campaign - 2% 7. Events in Iraq - 2% 8. Pelosi Trip to the Middle East - 1%9. Iran - 1%10. Stem Cell Research - 1% Top Ten Stories in the broader News Coverage Index 1. Imus's Comments - 26% 2. Events in Iraq - 10%3. Duke Lacrosse Scandal - 7%4. Iraq Policy Debate - 5%5. Immigration - 5%6. 2008 Campaign - 4%7. Fired US Attorneys Conterversy - 2%8. Iran - 2%9. Kurt Vonnegut Dies - 2%10. Iraq Homefront - 2% Click here to read the methodology behind the Talk Show Index.
The downfall of talk show host Don Imus for racist and misogynistic comments was the second most-heavily covered story of the year to date, according to the PEJ’s weekly study of the agenda of the American news media. From his attempted redemption on the Rev. Al Sharpton’s radio show to the fallout over his firing by NBC and CBS, the controversy over Imus’s insults about the Rutgers’s women’s basketball team filled more than a quarter of the newshole (26%) of PEJ’s News Coverage Index for the week of April 8 to 13. Only the debate over American war policy with Iraq when the President announced his “surge” plan the week of January 7 to 12 got more media coverage this year. It filled 34% of the newshole in our index that week. Nothing else this year has come close to capturing the media’s attention at this level. The next biggest story of the year, the controversy over the firing of U.S. Attorneys, filled 18% of the newshole the week of March 18 to 23. The takeover by Democrats of Congress reached 15% the first week of the year. Several stories, including the presidential campaign and the State of the Union speech, have gone as high as 13% in a given week. The Anna Nicole Smith story has never exceeded 10% of the total newshole. Last week, April 8 through 13, the second-biggest story was events on the ground in Iraq (10% of the newshole). That was followed by the Duke University lacrosse scandal (7%), the Iraq war policy debate (5%), and discussion of U.S. immigration policy (5%). The Imus story cut across every media sector, though it was particularly powerful on cable news. By week’s end, the story had taken up nearly half of all the time on the three cable news channels (48%). That exceeds any story on cable all year for a full week. As a source of comparison, the Anna Nicole Smith story, another cable favorite, made up 50% of cable time the two days after she died, but never exceeded 26% for a full week. The Imus story filled 39% of the radio newshole last week, and 25% of the time on network evening and morning news programs. Last week was also only the second time that events in Iraq itself surpassed the policy debate here at home as the focus of the coverage of the conflict. One reason was that early in the week marked the fourth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein. The end of the week was dominated by the bombing of the cafeteria in the Iraqi parliament building inside the so-called “Green Zone” of Baghdad, an area previously considered safe. Another Iraq story last week was the decision to extend deployments of U.S. troops from 12 months to 15. The Washington Post led on Thursday with the headline, “Strained Army Extends Tours to 15 Months: Move is Needed for Iraq Troop Increase.” The story tended to bleed across questions of the effect on the homefront and the policy. If all three elements of the Iraq story were combined—policy debate, homefront and events on the ground—they made up 17% of the newshole last week, still far from the Imus controversy. PEJ’s News Coverage Index is a study of the news agenda of 48 different outlets from five sectors of the media. (See a List of Outlets.) It is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics the media are covering, the trajectories of major stories and differences among news platforms. (See Our Methodology.) If the Imus story seemed to reflect a national conversation about race and misogyny, the Duke lacrosse story was framed as one about the American justice system, and to some lesser extent about media rush to judgment. As ABC’s Jim Avila opened his segment on the case, he described, “It was though the scales of justice were tipped in one day. The state attorney general telling the accused they should never have been charged, and those who accused them – they should think about apologizing.” The Imus mess was not a big story immediately. Imus started all this on April 4, when he referred to the Rutgers women’s basketball team, which was made up mostly of African American young women as “nappy headed ho’s.” The reference was in comparison to the Tennessee women’s team Rutgers played for the national championship, which was more heavily Caucasian. Imus himself did not seem to think the comments damaging. He said on air the next day that he didn’t know why people should be offended by “some idiot comment meant to be amusing.” By Friday, Imus had changed his tone and took time on his radio show to apologize for his “insensitive and ill-conceived remark.” Yet that change of heart could not be attributed to heavy media attention those first few days. Within PEJ’s news universe of 48 different news outlets, there was only a single story on Imus comment between the time he made the remarks (April 4) and the end of that Friday, April 6: a 3-minute report on CNN’s Situation Room Friday evening. That changed on Monday April 9, when Imus appeared on the radio program hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton in New York. Soon after the highly publicized appearance, all three of the network evening newscasts reported on Imus’s saga, with both NBC’s Nightly News and CBS’s Evening News choosing to lead with the Imus controversy. The same night on cable, CNN’s Paula Zahn Now, Fox News’s Hannity and Colmes, and MSNBC’s Scarborough Country all devoted practically their entire first 30 minutes to the Imus controversy. Several key ingredients seemed to combine to make the Imus story something that seized the media imagination. First, the story had new substantive developments each day of the week—several that came with TV visuals. The confrontation with Sharpton was the first of these. What ABC’s Dan Harris described as Imus’s “contrition-mission”—Imus himself said, “Our agenda is to try and be funny, and sometimes we go too far”—turned bad for the talk show host after Sharpton continued to be tough. At one point Imus exclaimed, “I can’t get anyplace with you people.” (Imus then explained that he was referring specifically to Sharpton and those on his show, not any larger group.) In the coverage that followed, several news organizations picked up on the moment that Sharpton brought out his daughter, a recent graduate of Temple University, and told Imus, “She in not a nappy-headed ho; she’s my daughter.” The following day, Tuesday, April 10, the Rutgers women’s team weighed in with a widely publicized press conference. “Our moment here was taken away, our moment to celebrate our success,” sophomore Heather Zurich told the cameras. A day later, several major advertisers such as American Express and General Motors announced they would no longer sponsor the Imus program. Late in the day, NBC announced it would drop the television simulcast of Imus’s show entirely on its cable channel MSNBC. On Thursday, CBS announced it was cancelling Imus’s radio program. The second factor driving the Imus story was that his program had prominent celebrity guests from the worlds of media and politics, many of whom felt obliged to weigh in. As Newsweek’s Howard Fineman put it on Imus’s Monday April 9 show, while urging him to meet with the Rutgers team, “You know, all of us who do your show, you know, we’re part of the gang. And we rely on you the way you rely on us. So, you know, you’re taking all of us with you when you go out there to meet with them.” The list of Imus regulars who felt compelled to comment in included Tom Oliphant of the Boston Globe (he expressed “solidarity”), NBC anchor Brian Williams on his blog (who admitted to a conflict of interest), Presidential Candidate John McCain (who called for “redemption”) and CBS’s Bob Schieffer (“If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t have anything to do with them. But I’m not going to sever a relationship with someone who has apologized for what he said. He’s my friend.”) Soon others were weighing in as well, from Barack Obama on ABC News (“He didn’t just cross the line, he fed into some of the worst stereotypes that my two young daughters are having to deal with today in America”), to Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Tom Delay and Whoopi Goldberg. Even President Bush offered up when his spokeswoman Dana Perino said, “The president believed that the apology was the absolute right thing to do…And beyond that, I think that his employer is going to have to make a decision about any action that they take based on it.” There was also history here—a record of comments by Imus about race and gender. Imus had once referred to PBS’s Gwen Ifill, also African American, as a “cleaning lady,” and New York Times columnist William Rhoden, also Black, as a “quota hire.” Imus had also made repeated references to Arabs as “ragheads” and some women as “skanks.” CBS’s 60 Minutes ran a 10-year-old profile on Imus that even then noted the offensive nature of some of his humor. The Imus story also seemed to connect at least in the press coverage with larger social themes about race, gender, the nature of civil discourse in America, the question of whether it was appropriate for different ethnic groups to talk about themselves internally in ways that were not acceptable generally, and whether there were double standards because of the discourse in comedy and rap music. On his radio program, Sean Hannity asked, “If the term is that offensive, well, why haven’t they, meaning Sharpton and [Jesse] Jackson, why haven’t they been out protesting the repeated references and worse, by some of the music artists that are out there?” On MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, guest John Ridley argued, “You can flip over to MTV or BET and see rap music videos made by black people objectifying black women as video ho’s.” Finally, the Imus story was also simple to understand. A viewer, listener or reader could grasp the controversy and have a strong opinion after less than a minute of hearing Imus’s initial remark and one of his several attempts at apologizing. The relative compactness of the Imus story made it perfect for a media culture quick to move from facts to talk, and for members of the media to express judgments about the situation and its impact on media as a whole. In announcing his decision to drop Imus, NBC News President Steve Capus suggested that conversation had even influenced the network. “I think there has been some very interesting conversation going on in this country about what’s appropriate, about race relations, and I hope that conversation goes forward….And when you start looking at all of the body of work and everything that was said all through the years, at some point you have to say, ‘enough is enough.’” And as the week ended, the conversation had turned to whether Imus was a victim of political correctness or whether other media people should lose their jobs. Basketball owner Mark Cuban wrote on his blog, “If the Imus show was on [Cuban’s television network] HDNET would I have fired him? Hell no. I would have expected him to apologize, but he would have kept his job. Firing him would just get him a job on HBO.” Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, seeing a double standard, also suggested during a campaign stop in Iowa that perhaps the story was not over yet. “If Imus is going to get fired, then there’s a lot of other people that need to go out the door. Rosie [O’Donnell] has probably got to go. Bill Maher has to go. Gosh, half of talk radio and television has to go.” Tom Rosenstiel, Paul Hitlin, and Hong Ji of PEJ Note: Due to a technical error, Friday's edition of the Chattanooga Times Free Press was not included in this week's sample.On his April 5 show, radio host Michael Savage ripped House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a segment he called “Damascus Does Nancy.” “She was gutsy enough to make the sign of the Cross in a mosque,” Savage said. “But she was not gutsy enough to make the sign of the bird to Assad.” On April 3, Rush Limbaugh offered his view of Pelosi’s motivation. “She’s over there trying to undermine the United States,” (Limbaugh’s emphasis) he said. “She’s the queen bee.’ The same subject was at the core of an April 6 shout fest on the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity & Colmes.” Democratic commentator Jane Fleming lauded Pelosi for doing “exactly what the Iraqi study group said to do…to engage in a dialogue with Syria…” Republican pundit Amy Holmes countered that Pelosi “tried to usurp the power of the executive branch to conduct foreign policy.” If ever a subject was a sure bet to get the attention of the talk hosts, who live on controversy, it was a politically polarizing figure (Pelosi) talking to a distrusted foreign leader (Assad), who has been ostracized by an unpopular president (Bush) on issues at the heart of this country’s divisive foreign policy (the war on terror and the conflict in Iraq). Last week was a crowded one in the talk show universe. Iran released its British hostages, Senator John McCain decried media coverage of Iraq, and the presidential candidates revealed their fundraising prowess. All of these were big topics. But Pelosi’s Damascus dialogue got significant air play, twice as much in talk radio as it did in the news media overall. It filled 10% of the airtime on the cable and radio talk shows, making it the fourth biggest topic of the week, according to PEJ’s Talk Show Index for April 1 through April 6.For the first time since mid-February, the Iraq policy debate (at 19%) was the top talk topic of the week. It edged out the conflict with Iran (18%) which was punctuated by the release of the captive Brits. The 2008 battle for the White House was next at 16%. This is also the second week in a row—but only the second time since the Talk Index began in January—that four different subjects each filled at least 10% of the talk newshole. Taking a closer look at which hosts chose to tackle the Pelosi trip also reveals a basic tenet of the talk show culture. It was a bigger story on radio (about 38 minutes) than on cable (about 30 minutes). And it was overwhelming the conservative hosts who were critical of Pelosi—such as Limbaugh, Savage, and Sean Hannity—who spent time on the issue while their liberal counterparts were silent.What’s the moral of the story? In the talk business, it’s much easier to play offense than defense. That also helps explain why conservative radio talkers have been relatively silent about the U.S. attorneys scandal engulfing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The Talk Show Index, released each Friday, is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics are most frequently dissected and discussed in the media universe of talk and opinion—a segment of the media that spans across both prime time cable and radio. (See About the Talk Show Index.) PEJ’s Talk Show Index includes seven prime time cable shows and five radio talk hosts and is a subset of our News Coverage Index.Talk show interest in the investigation of the fired U.S. attorneys fell sharply last week, as was the case with PEJ’s general News Coverage Index. The story, which was the leading talk topic for the last three weeks in March, dropped to just 2% of the talk time, putting it in seventh place among topics. Only the cable hosts devoted time to an issue that seems to be on the back burner until Gonzales’s much anticipated April 17 appearance before Congress. On the April 5 edition of CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” correspondent Brian Todd provided a sense of those April 17 stakes, at least from the AG’s perspective. He reported that Gonzales “is now hunkered down preparing for it. Justice officials tell us he is staying behind closed doors, cancelling a family vacation and will go through mock grilling sessions, possibly with outside legal advisors.”Both the conflict with Iran and the Iraq policy debate got serious attention in both the cable and radio talk sectors. When it comes to the debate over Iraq, the April 2 monologues of liberal Randi Rhodes and conservative Sean Hannity served as proxies for the most basic, boiled-down anti-administration and pro-administration views of the conflict: “The war is a costly quagmire” versus “We can win if we remain steadfast.”On her April 2 show, Rhodes used John McCain’s trip to Baghdad to attack the GOP presidential hopeful’s assertions that the security situation on the ground has improved. “The safe streets of Iraq?” Rhodes declared. “John McCain took his little stroll wearing armor…John McCain had more bodyguards with him than P. Diddy getting to the MTV Awards.”Conversely, Hannity took aim at the Democrats’ legislative efforts to reverse President Bush’s course in Iraq. “Harry Reid…and his fellow Democrats are prepared to leave our troops on the battlefield without food, without equipment, without bullets, without reinforcements and the ability to defeat the enemy,” he declared.The connection between the Iraq war and the global battle against terrorism was the focus of another political dispute last week that helped make the war on terror the eighth biggest talk topic at 2%. The subject arose from a memo advising Democrats not to use the phrase “global war on terrorism” to describe the situation in Iraq because it falsely links that conflict to the struggle against Al Qaeda. Republicans vocally disagreed.Some hosts were quick to pounce on that memo. On his April 4 show, Limbaugh mocked the idea that “there is no war on terror” and accused Democrats of “doing their best to convince everybody there is no reason for a war on terror.” It was another example of how in the talk universe, offense trumps defense. Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ
Top Ten Stories in the Talk Show Index 3. 2008 Campaign - 16%4. Pelosi Trip to the Middle East - 10% 5. Global Warming - 3%6. Immigration - 3% 7. Fired US Attorney Controversy - 2% 8. War on Terror General - 2%9. US Economic Numbers - 2%10. Democratic-led Congress - 1% Top Ten Stories in the broader News Coverage Index 1. Iran - 13% 2. 2008 Campaign - 10%3. Iraq Policy Debate - 9%4. Global Warming - 5%5. Pelosi Trip to the Middle East - 5%6. Events in Iraq - 4%7. Solomon Islands Tsunami - 2%8. Iraq Homefront - 2%9. Immigration - 2%10. US Economic Numbers - 2% Click here to read the methodology behind the Talk Show Index. The first story on the April 3 edition of NBC’s “Today” show was media manna for Mitt Romney. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported that the former Massachusetts governor had raised $20 million in the first quarter of 2007 to outpace rivals, calling it “the big surprise on the Republican side.” “Romney,” she added, “is now the undisputed winner of the money primary.” The next evening, Charlie Gibson led ABC’s nightly newscast by trumpeting the news on the Democratic side. Senator Barack Obama had collected $25 million to trail frontrunner Hillary Clinton by only $1 million. “Tonight, Barack Obama’s extraordinary fundraising windfall,” Gibson declared, “shattering expectations and shaking up the presidential race.” Nine months before any citizen casts a vote, what was once called the “invisible” or media primary for the 2008 presidential race is well underway. Only now it is hardly invisible. Last week’s first quarter fundraising statistics were not treated as a minor inside story about money, for instance, but as a major milestone for establishing frontrunners and expectations. Romney and Obama, by exceeding those expectations, were the big winners. McCain and Clinton were, by media calculations at least, the losers. With dollars driving the narrative, the campaign was the second biggest story last week, filling 10% of the overall newshole for the week of April 1-6, according to PEJ’s News Coverage Index. This marked the 12th consecutive week the campaign has been one of the five biggest stories in the U.S. media. Since mid-January—when Obama announced his exploratory committee—the only subject that has generated more overall coverage is the debate over Iraq. Whether a cause of the press coverage or a reflection of it, according to the Pew ResearchCenter for the People & the Press there is more public interest in this campaign than there had been in early stages of previous presidential races. (About half those surveyed in April were following the 2008 race “very” or “fairly closely” compared to 27% who said they were following the 2004 campaign closely in May 2003.) The one story that topped the presidential campaign last week was the conflict with Iran, (13%), a subject fueled by the Iranian-British hostage crisis that was resolved with the release of the 15 captives on April 5. That was followed by the Iraq debate (9%), a topic fueled in part by the controversy over John McCain’s upbeat assessments of the security situation inside Iraq. Spurred by a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate emissions, global warming (5%) was the fourth biggest story. One subject that virtually dropped off the media radar screen was the investigation into the eight fired U.S. attorneys that threatens Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. After being either the first or second biggest story for the three previous weeks, the topic plummeted to 1%. That despite the April 6 news that Monica Goodling—the top Gonzales aide who refused to testify in the probe—had resigned. There’s little doubt, though, that the story will resurface in a big way when Gonzales, his future at stake, testifies before a skeptical Congress on April 17. PEJ’s News Coverage Index is a study of the news agenda of 48 different outlets from five sectors of the media. (See a List of Outlets.) It is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics the media are covering, the trajectories of major stories and differences among news platforms. (See Our Methodology.) The battle to succeed George Bush in 2008 was the top story on newspaper front pages last week (at 8% of that newshole), and finished second on network TV (at 12%), second on cable (15%) and third on radio (11%). Only online outlets, at 2%, did not give it major attention. For as much coverage as the presidential race generated last week, there wasn’t much attention paid to the official entries of long shot Republicans Tom Tancredo and Tommy Thompson. With so many candidates in the race, journalists have focused largely on the marquee names. That primarily means Republicans McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and to a lesser degree Romney, and Democrats Obama and Clinton. And of that group, the Democrats have thus far been the main attraction. Since the coverage accelerated in the middle of January, the Index reveals that the Democratic candidates—primarily Clinton and Obama—have been featured in roughly twice as many stories as the GOP hopefuls. Clinton, in particular, has been a lightning rod/target for the talk hosts, particularly the conservative radio talkers. So it’s no surprise that in PEJ’s Talk Show Index, which monitors 12 radio and cable talk shows, the presidential race has been a top five topic for 10 straight weeks. For the second week in a row, Iran and its capture of 15 British military prisoners was the top story overall, leading in online coverage (17%), on network TV (16%), on cable news (17%) and on radio (19%). The story gained momentum at the end of the week as the troops were returned home and then held a much-publicized press conference. (Update: After initially giving the former captives permission to sell their stories to the media, the British government reversed course and prohibited that practice.) The subject of conflict with Iran has followed a sharply higher trajectory in the past few months. It emerged as the third biggest story in the week of February 11-16 after a U.S. briefing blamed the Iranians for supplying weapons killing American troops in Iraq. Since then, tensions with Iran have been the fifth biggest news story overall, according to the Index. Even though the hostage standoff pitted Britain (rather than the U.S.) directly against Iran, it is not likely to ease concerns about a future confrontation between Teheran and Washington. With the Supreme Court’s emissions decision dealing the Bush administration’s environmental policy a major setback, global warming became a top-10 story for only the third time since the beginning of the year. It generated the most coverage, at 9%, on the network news shows. The fifth biggest story (at 5%) was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip that included a controversial Damascus stop to talk with a Syrian government that the Bush administration has essentially been boycotting. That visit, criticized by the White House, filled 10% of the radio airtime, with a number of radio talkhosts taking the opportunity to chime in. The tsunami that struck the Solomon Islands on April 2—killing several dozen and leaving thousands of people homeless—was the seventh biggest story at 2% However, in the online sector, which tends to offer the widest variety of international coverage, it was the second biggest story at 11%, behind only Iran-related hostilities. While a natural disaster, a hostage crisis (or even a probe of the Justice Department) are episodic events that can attract major media attention before fading into history, intense ongoing coverage of the presidential campaign, even at this early date, appears to be a fact of life. In the media primary, every day brings a crucial news development. It can be a McCain pronouncement on Iraq, a fundraising report, and of course, a new poll. On the April 3 edition of CNN’s “Situation Room,” guest host Suzanne Malveaux rolled out a new survey of New Hampshire voters. The big news was a poll among Democrats indicating that between February and April, frontrunner Hillary Clinton fell to 27% from 35% and Jon Edwards moved up to 21% from 16%, just ahead of Obama (at 20%). “Tonight, surprising news turns and tightening in the Democratic presidential race,” Malveaux declared. “Jon Edwards has narrowly squeezed into second place.” New Hampshire voters are scheduled to go to the polls in 287 days. Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ Note: Due to a technical error, CNN's Monday daytime program was not included in this week's sample.Testifying about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, Sampson contradicted Gonzales by saying he had discussed the firings with the attorney general on several occasions. On his March 29 MSNBC show, host Tucker Carlson said Sampson’s remarks didn’t produce a “smoking gun” for a criminal offense. “But today’s questioning did result in a damning description of the attorney general who had previously stated he was not involved in the firings of the now famous eight prosecutors,” he added. “I think…Gonzales is in trouble.”For some radio talkhosts, the March 25 “60 Minutes” interview that Katie Couric conducted with Presidential hopeful John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth was the hot topic. Sitting down with them just days after the revelation that Elizabeth’s cancer had returned, Couric generated some criticism for being too aggressive in her approach. But on his March 26, show Rush Limbaugh took something of the opposite tack.“She’s coming under some fire for her tough questions to the Edwards,” declared Limbaugh. “I dispute that she asked tough questions. The subject matter may have been tough, but I think Katie took the easy way out.” The U.S. attorneys probe last week was the biggest overall topic last week, consuming 19% of the cable and radio talk airtime, according to PEJ’s Talk Show Index for March 25-March 30. (It marked the third week in a row in which the U.S. attorneys case was the top talk subject.) The 2008 presidential race, which included the controversial “60 Minutes” interview, was the fourth biggest topic at 11%.But the radio and cable hosts differed noticeably on their favorite subjects. The U.S. attorneys—or “Gonzales-gate” as it has become known in some circles—was the top subject on cable talk shows, but only the third biggest topic on talk radio. Conversely, the leading story for radio talkers was the race for the White House. Yet that was only the fourth biggest topic on the cable programs. There was, in fact, some fierce competition for talkers’ attention last week. For the first time since the Index began in January, four different subjects commanded at least 10% of the talk airtime. The second biggest story, just behind the U.S. attorneys, was the conflict with Iran (18%), dominated by the Iranian-British hostage crisis that was resolved on April 5. The third biggest story was the debate over Iraq strategy, at 12%.There can be a number of reasons why one issue gets more traction on cable talk while another is more popular on radio. They include the hosts’ priorities and the programs’ editorial DNA. The two cable shows that devoted the most segments to the U.S. attorneys last week were CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight”—which often projects an investigative zeal—and MSNBC’s “Hardball” with Chris Matthews, a show frequently drawn to Beltway intrigue and conflict. At the same time, ideology also appears to be a factor. The conservative hosts, who dominate the talk radio genre, did not have a lot to say about the deepening U.S. attorneys/Justice Department scandal. Yet, talk radio’s interest in the presidential race was driven primarily by conservative hosts—who were more interested in sizing up everyone from Hillary Clinton (a favorite target) to Rudy Giuliani—than their liberal counterparts. The Talk Show Index, released each Friday, is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics are most frequently dissected and discussed in the media universe of talk and opinion—a segment of the media that spans across both prime time cable and radio. (See About the Talk Show Index.) PEJ’s Talk Show Index includes seven prime time cable shows and five radio talk hosts and is a subset of our News Coverage Index. Two weeks ago, even as the March 22 announcement about Elizabeth Edwards’s cancer dominated overall news coverage, talk hosts appeared somewhat reticent to tackle the subject. In that week, they devoted only about one-third of their segments to the issue.Last week, however, Couric’s interview with the presidential hopeful and his wife gave some hosts another way to broach the issue. And on her March 27 show, liberal radio talker Randi Rhodes attacked Couric’s interview from a different angle than did the conservative Limbaugh. Rhodes exploded in anger after playing a clip of Couric asking the Edwards about critics of their decision to continue his presidential campaign in light of her medical situation.“I saw the interview with Katie Couric…This from the woman who videotaped her colonoscopies,” said Rhodes. “I can’t believe this, that they’re literally sitting there and attacking [Elizabeth] Edwards for having cancer.” Another subject that provoked passion last week was the showdown between Britain and Iran over the 15 sailors and marines taken hostage on March 23. While this confrontation did not directly involve the U.S., some conservative talkers advocated an aggressive response toward a country that has been a subject of growing concern for the Bush administration.On March 26, radio host Michael Savage expressed frustration. “We’ve got two carrier groups in the Strait of Hormuz and they’re doing nothing,” he said. “We have two giant carrier groups telling the [expletive] from Iran to watch his step or we’re liable to blow him off the planet. But I don’t know if we have the guts to do it.” Two nights later on his Fox News Channel show, Bill O’Reilly cited Britain’s “tepid response” to the crisis and warned that “Iran and other haters around the world believe the USA and Britain have been dramatically weakened…and will now ramp up the violence to show the world the West is in decline.”The eighth biggest story last week, global warming at 2%, was a subject discussed only by Limbaugh, who often challenges the theory that humans are responsible for dangerous heating of the planet. While talkhosts aren’t necessarily a self-effacing lot, Limbaugh cited the "Planet Earth" series on the Discovery Channel to highlight the insignificance of the human race when it comes to altering our environment. “This series buttresses the point I’ve been trying to make about how massive and complex our whole climate and planet are,” he said on his March 26 show. “It just makes the case of how literally insignificant we are in everything that has ever happened on this planet.” Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ Top Ten Stories in the Talk Show Index 3. Iraq Policy Debate - 12%4. 2008 Campaign - 11% 5. White House Scandals - 4%6. Tony Snow's Health - 2% 7. Anna Nicole Smith - 2% 8. Global Warming - 2%9. Events in Iraq - 1%10. Afghanistan - 1% Top Ten Stories in the broader News Coverage Index 1. Iran - 12% 2. Fired US Attorney Controversy - 11%3. Iraq Policy Debate - 10%4. 2008 Campaign - 7%5. Events in Iraq - 6%6. US Domestic Terrorism - 3%7. Iraq Homefront - 2%8. Heart Disease Research - 2%9. Severe Weather/Storms - 2%10. Anna Nicole Smith - 2% Click here to read the methodology behind the Talk Show Index. On the March 27 edition of NBC’s “Today” show, host Meredith Viera made sure the hostage crisis between Iran and Britain resonated with viewers at home. “If you think Iran’s capture of those 15 British troops near the Persian Gulf doesn’t affect you,” she cautioned, “you might be in for a rude awakening the next time you fill up your car.”Later that same day on CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” correspondent Jamie McIntyre hammered away at the same issue, noting that the hostage standoff was unfolding just as the U.S. was engaged in major military exercises in the Persian Gulf. “Jittery investors have already sent oil prices to a high for the year on fears that rising tensions could disrupt the 40% of the world’s oil that flows through the Strait of Hormuz,” he added. The ability to connect Iran’s holding of 15 British sailors and marines to the price at the gas pump is one reason why a crisis that does not directly involve this country was the biggest story overall last week, according to PEJ’s News Coverage Index from March 25-March 30. This new Iranian hostage crisis, which began on March 23, filled 12% of the overall newshole, and was the number one story in three media sectors—online (23%), network TV (11%) and cable (16%).In a busy news week, the fallout from the eight fired U.S. attorneys was the second biggest story at 11%, making it the third straight week that this subject has exceeded 10% of the overall coverage. Right behind that was the Iraq debate (at 10%), fueled in part by the 51-47 U.S. Senate vote on March 29 to set a troop withdrawal timetable. Next (at 7%) was the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign where a good portion of the coverage was related to the March 22 announcement that Elizabeth Edwards’s cancer had returned. (Katie Couric’s March 25 “60 Minutes” interview with John and Elizabeth Edwards left some viewers complaining that she had been too tough.) A few medical stories made news last week. A study concluding that the widely-used angioplasty procedure for treating heart patients was no more effective than treatment with drugs was the eighth biggest story at 2%. (It was the fifth biggest story in both newspapers and network TV.) Word that White House press secretary Tony Snow has suffered a recurrence of cancer just missed making the top-10 list, at 1%.After a three-week hiatus from the top-10 story list, the death of Anna Nicole Smith re-emerged as story #10 last week at 2%. The big news was the official autopsy report that concluded she died from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. And as has been the case throughout this tabloid saga, it was cable television—where it was the fifth biggest story at 5% last week—that offered the most coverage. On April 4, the PEJ will release an Index Special Report examining the coverage of the Anna Nicole Smith story from her death on February 8 to her burial on March 2. PEJ’s News Coverage Index is a study of the news agenda of 48 different outlets from five sectors of the media. (See a List of Outlets.) It is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics the media are covering, the trajectories of major stories and differences among news platforms. (See Our Methodology.) For all the mounting tension between the U.S. and Iran over that country’s nuclear program and its role in the Iraq fighting, it turned out to be a conflict between Iran and another nation that generated the most news coverage for that topic in 2007. In the January 10 speech in which he announced his troop “surge” strategy for Iraq, President Bush included a short but toughly worded passage that seemed to threaten military action against Iran. Yet, with the exception of a few cable talkhosts, the prospect of war with Iran did not initially attract much media attention. But in the week of Feb. 11-16, escalating friction between the U.S. and Iran became the third hottest topic at 7%. (In a Feb.12 “World News Tonight,” interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Diane Sawyer bluntly asked: “Do you personally fear an invasion or an attack by the United States?”) Nothing particularly dramatic occurred to fuel hostilities that week. Instead, the catalyst for much of the media coverage was some Bush administration backtracking after a February 11 military briefing accused the Iranian government of providing weapons being used to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. The following week, the conflict with Iran slid to the sixth biggest story, accounting for 5% of the overall coverage. It then disappeared from the top-10 story list for three weeks before turning up as the sixth biggest story (3%) in the Index for March 18-March 23, with most of the coverage focused on the March 23 seizure of the British forces. Last week that unresolved standoff—which included videos of the captives and purported confessions—again put Iran at the top of the headlines. It again raised the specter of another war in another Mideast hotspot. In a March 29 story that reinforced the notion of the U.S. a central player in this drama, CNN correspondent Barbara Starr reported that when the captives were first taken and “this incident originally unfolded…U.S. military forces were nearby in the Persian Gulf and were asked by the British to try and help.” While still finishing second for the week at 11%, coverage of the U.S. attorneys case cooled off from the two previous weeks when it had filled 16% and 18% of the overall newshole. It was a difficult week for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that included a March 25 New York Times story reporting that documents suggest the AG was more involved in the dismissal of the eight U.S. attorneys than he had previously acknowledged. Then Gonzales senior aide Monica Goodling indicated she would take the Fifth Amendment rather than testify about the firings. The big event was the March 29 Congressional testimony of former Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson who said he had discussed the issue with his boss on several occasions. “Under oath and before Congress, the attorney general’s top aide says that Gonzales did not tell the truth,” declared Chris Matthews in the open of his March 29 “Hardball” show. “Does Gonzales have to resign?” And finally, last week the sad tale of Anna Nicole Smith reached some kind of closure—even as legal issues remain—when the autopsy concluded she died of a lethal combination of numerous prescription drugs. On his March 26 show, Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly offered a tough post-mortem on the case. “No human being needs this volume of drugs,” he said. “This woman was a drug addict.” Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ Note: Due to a technical error on Monday, March 26, we included CNN's Situation Room instead of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 in this week's sample.On the day the House approved a timetable for Iraq withdrawal, the MSNBC “Hardball” debate between war critic Mike Barnicle and supporter Ron Christie got heated and personal. “The idea that you might think that the American military’s mission on the ground is the same as the mission of the Iraqi government…that’s sad,” declared Barnicle. “Don’t you want stability?” answered Christie. “In other words, we should just pull out now and we should just let Al Qaeda win?” “That’s so lame, Ron, the Al Qaeda thing,” said Barnicle. “That’s not lame,” snapped Christie. “Mike, you can’t even express how you define success in Iraq.” “Stirring debate tonight,” observed host Chris Matthews as he separated the combatants. Whether the subject is Iraq policy, the fired U.S. attorneys, or even global warming, cable and radio talkshows—if the last week is any measure—tend to stoke the big stories of the week with a formula that relies heavily on personal invective along with the politics. Sometimes, as with the March 23 “Hardball” face-off, a topic as familiar as Iraq is infused with the energy and anger by a polarizing exchange of attacks. Sometimes a complex story is boiled down to a key player becoming a personification of the issue—and often, a subject of criticism or scorn. And sometimes, the level of debate here has nothing to do with the issue at all, as with conservative radio host Michael Savage’s March 20 reference to Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman as “Nostrilman.” For the second week in a row, the political showdown over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys—particularly the uncertain status of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales—was the biggest talk topic. It filled 29% of the airtime, according to PEJ’s Talk Show Index from March 18-23. Fueled by the House Democrats’ narrow victory in passing an Iraq exit deadline, the debate over Iraq was the second biggest talk topic (at 22%). The third hottest subject (at 9%) was the 2008 Presidential race. It was the week’s fourth biggest talk story—global warming at 8%--that most clearly reflected talk’s proclivity to turn the political into the personal. The debate about global warming was really a conversation about one man, former vice-president Al Gore, who appeared before Congress last week to declare that that “the planet has a fever.” Much of the conversation about the former vice president took the form of Gore goring by conservative radio talkers. Rush Limbaugh summed up the state of the environmental debate this way on his March 21 show: “Former vice-president Al Gore pulling shenanigans before a House Committee today looking into global warming.” “I’m gonna chronicle all his hypocrisy…It’s so arrogant, it’s unbelievable,” declared Sean Hannity on his March 21 radio show as he played clips of Gore’s testimony. “As typical for Gore, the rules don’t apply to him.” When Hannity aired a snippet of Gore getting emotional in his discussion of global warming, the host also added a sound effect—the unmistakable wail of an unhappy baby. The Talk Show Index, released each Friday, is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics are most frequently dissected and discussed in the media universe of talk and opinion—a segment of the media that spans across both prime time cable and radio. (See About the Talk Show Index.) PEJ’s Talk Show Index includes seven prime time cable shows and five radio talk hosts and is a subset of our News Coverage Index. Despite indications that the public is paying some but not intense attention to the U.S. attorneys saga—The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds only 8% identifying it as story they were following most closely—the subject has attracted tremendous media interest. In each of the past two weeks it has been the top overall news story. And it is the second biggest story recorded by the Index since its launch in January. After surfacing as the hottest talk topic (at 21%) two weeks ago, that number grew to 29% of the talk menu last week. A complicated Beltway battle, (46% of the Pew Research Center respondents found it “boring”), the most visible symbol of the U.S. attorneys story to date is embattled Attorney General Gonzales, whose job appears to hang in the balance. Not surprisingly, he has become a focal point of the talk debate, and particularly among the liberal talkers who seem to be rooting for his ouster. MSNBC’s “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann, who likes to refer to the story as “Gonzales-gate,” mocked a sound bite of Gonzales saying he would remain on the job and “stay focused on protecting our kids.” “While Mr. Gonzales was out protecting the kids,” Olbermann said on his March 22 show, “the presence of his former chief of staff was being cordially requested on Capitol Hill.” Substituting for Randi Rhodes on March 23, radio host Stacy Taylor had his own way of translating the U.S. attorneys story into talk-ese. “I must say that I’m becoming more and more intrigued with ‘Gonzo-gate,’ having a lot more fun with ‘Gonzo-gate,’” he said. “The more you get into it, the more interesting it gets.” On her show that aired March 19, Rhodes’s method for launching a discussion of the situation in Iraq was to turn her guns on Laura Bush. The trigger was the First Lady’s statement in a Larry King interview that many parts of Iraq are stable. “But, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everybody.” Rhodes wasted little time in reacting to that with an ad hominem attack. “I think she had a face lift because she looks good and crazier than ever,” said Rhodes of the woman she has dubbed “Crazy eyes Laura Bush.” Yet, for all that, there are times when talk hosts give short shrift to the important and obvious personal angle to a big story. The sad revelation last week that Elizabeth Edward’s cancer had returned in a serious form was a substantial element in more than half of the 2008 campaign stories examined in PEJ’s overall News Coverage Index of the media generally. But the talk shows avoided a story that was personal but not ideological. Only about one-third of the 21 campaign-related talk segments last week focused on Elizabeth Edwards’ news, according to the Index. That suggests that there are indeed some subjects that don’t lend themselves to talk’s sharp-elbowed debates. Mark Jurkowitz of PEJTop Ten Stories in the Talk Show Index 3. Campaign 2008 - 9%4. Global Warming - 8% 5. Events in Iraq - 5%6. Iran - 3% 7. Iraq Homefront - 2% 8. Immigration - 1%9. General War on Terror - 1%10. Congressional Corruption - 1% Top Ten Stories in the broader News Coverage Index 1. Fired US Attorney Controversy - 18% 2. Iraq Policy Debate - 12%3. Events in Iraq - 9%4. 2008 Campaign - 7%5. Iraq Homefront - 4%6. Iran - 3%7. Global Warming - 3%8. Immigration - 3%9. Boy Scout Found in North Carolina - 2%10. US Economic Numbers - 2% Click here to read the methodology behind the Talk Show Index. After a news report on embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, National Public Radio’s March 23 “Morning Edition” program raised a crucial question about Washington’s scandal du jour. “The controversy over the firings of the U.S. attorneys has consumed official Washington,” said host Renee Montagne. “But what is the public reaction to this story?” “Really kind of minimal,” responded NPR’s political editor Ken Rudin. “If you look at polls, not many people are paying attention to it, but those who are are really outraged…” The people paying the most attention are journalists, according to PEJ’s News Coverage Index. The fallout over the firing of the eight U.S. attorneys was not only the biggest story last week, March 18-23, it really amounts at this point to a mega story. Filling 18% of the overall newshole, it was the second-biggest story of the year. The only one to receive more coverage was the debate over the Iraq war, which filled 34% of the newshole the week in January when President Bush announced his troop “surge” plan. Already the level of coverage of the U.S. attorneys flap has substantially exceeded that of two other major Washington scandals—the Scooter Libby trial and conditions at Walter Reed Army Hospital. It also was a big story across the media spectrum last week, the top subject in four of the five media sectors—newspapers, network TV, cable TV, and radio. And the subject attracted considerably more attention than other major stories last week, including the Iraq policy debate (second at 12%), the violence inside Iraq (third at 9%), the 2008 presidential race (fourth at 7%), and the Iraq war at home (fifth at 4%). Yet, as NPR noted, the story has thus far exposed something of a disconnect between news producer and news consumer. While journalists appear fascinated by this battle between Congress and the White House, the public has yet to evince great enthusiasm for it. According to a News Interest Index survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, only 8% of the public said the U.S. attorneys story was the one they followed most closely in the week of March 12. (That week it led all news coverage at 16%.) And preliminary results from last week indicate that citizen interest in the subject is up only marginally, despite the even higher level of media coverage. For journalists and Washington-watchers, there was plenty of drama in the Justice Department scandal last week. Gonzales battled to keep his job, Bush voiced support for him, and Congress authorized subpoenas to try and force the public testimony of former White House counsel Harriet Miers and top aide Karl Rove. Stories spoke of a Constitutional showdown between the legislative and executive branches—a term loaded with historical resonance. Liberal MSNBC “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann opened his March 22 show by declaring there is “nothing more dangerous to a presidency perhaps than a scandal evoking Watergate and executive privilege and attorneys general in trouble.” In case anyone missed the point, Olbermann’s interview subject that night was none other than Richard Nixon White House Counsel John Dean, now a Bush critic. Maybe, if the public ever comes to view what Olbermann calls “Gonzales-gate” as sharing some kind of parallel to Watergate, interest may well rise. But many people may instead share the view of CNN’s Lou Dobbs who, in a commentary posted on CNN.com, put a pox on everybody’s house. “And this is what passes for a big-time, dramatic, historical constitutional crisis in 21st century America?” Dobbs wrote. “You’ve got to be kidding…The White House is behaving with utter contempt for Congress and Congress is acting without respect or regard for this president. Could it be that, at long last, they’re both right?” PEJ’s News Coverage Index is a study of the news agenda of 48 different outlets from five sectors of the media. (See a List of Outlets.) It is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics the media are covering, the trajectories of major stories and differences among news platforms. (See Our Methodology.) Most journalists themselves were not quick to pick up on the ramifications of the eight U.S. attorney firings across the country. The story did a slow simmer for several weeks, before finally catching fire in March. It first registered as a story in the News Coverage Index for March 4-9, when it accounted for 2% of the newshole. The following week it jumped to 16%. Not only did the story dominate coverage in newspapers (13%), on network TV (20%), on cable (21%) and radio (25%) last week, it was a strong second online (at 16%), behind only the violence in Iraq. Indeed, the story generated more front-page newspaper coverage last week than any subject since the Presidential race back in late January. At the same time, it has also proved irresistible fodder for the cable and radio talkshows. It was the top topic, filling 21% of the airtime in PEJ’s March 11-16 Talk Show Index, and consumed even more of the talk menu (29%) last week. Compare this coverage to the Scooter Libby trial or the issue of the medical care of wounded war veterans. The Libby trial—with deep connections to Vice-President Dick Cheney—usually filled about 3% to 4% of the weekly newshole before peaking as the #1 story (13%) when the March 6 guilty verdict came in. The care of injured veterans, a subject ignited by a February 18-19 Washington Post investigation of Walter Reed Hospital, has generated a great deal of public interest. Yet the Iraq homefront category, which includes those medical stories, never exceeded 7% of the newshole in any Index. Last week, for the first time since the Post series was published, there were relatively few Walter Reed-related stories. For now, apparently, concerns over the treatment of wounded veterans have been supplanted by the U.S. Attorney controversy as Washington’s mono mania. The second biggest story last week, the Iraq policy debate, was fueled largely by three factors—the fourth anniversary of the conflict, the President asking the public for patience, and the House passage of a war funding bill that also includes a withdrawal timetable. One of the biggest breaking news events last week, the recurrence of Elizabeth Edwards’s cancer, did dominate coverage of the 2008 Presidential race in what was otherwise a relatively slow campaign news week. The March 20 rescue of missing Boy Scout Michael Auberry represented a happy ending to a frightening situation. But the coverage tailed off dramatically after he was found and the story finished ninth for the week at 2%. The eighth-biggest story of the week (at 3%) was the debate over immigration policy. On many weeks, that topic is defined by CNN’s Dobbs, who uses his show as a soapbox to hammer away for tougher laws and more muscular enforcement. But last week, a number of other outlets examined the issue. It was the second-biggest newspaper story (at 7% of all front page coverage). On its March 20 nightly newscast, NBC illustrated the national confusion over the issue by contrasting policies in two areas. Suffolk County New York issues traffic fines to people suspected of transporting illegal immigrants to work while New Haven, Connecticut is a “sanctuary city” trying to provide municipal services to undocumented workers. One thing both sides seem to agree on, noted correspondent Ron Allen, is that “hardly anyone expects a national immigration initiative soon that will help solve the problem.” Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ Even though the political confrontation over the fired U.S. attorneys and the 2008 presidential campaign were the two biggest talk show subjects last week, whether or not you heard about them at all depended on who was doing the talking. The battle between Congress and the White House over the U.S. attorneys accounted for 21% of the talk airtime, according to PEJ’s Talk Show Index from March 11-March 16. And MSNBC’s prime-time hosts dove into the issue. White House correspondent David Gregory opened the March 13 “Hardball” by declaring: “Tonight, under intense pressure from Congress, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales admits mistakes in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. Democrats looking for blood. Could more jobs be lost?” Three nights later, when “Countdown’s” Keith Olbermann talked about growing pressure on Gonzales to resign, an image of the Attorney General popped up on the screen above the caption “Gonzo?” Yet, if you were tuned to the Fox News Channel, none of hosts in the Index sample—Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes—raised the flap over the U.S. attorneys last week. But the opposite was true when it came to the 2008 campaign for the White House, which accounted for 13% of the talk menu. On this subject, the Fox hosts were deeply engaged. On the March 12 “Hannity & Colmes,” Hannity ran a clip of a Hillary Clinton speech that drew analogies between her campaign and John F. Kennedy’s in 1960. “Hillary Clinton is claiming she is the JFK of 2008,” said an incredulous host. “Really?” On the same night, Bill O’Reilly revealed the results of an online poll for GOP hopefuls that showed Newt Gingrich at 49%, Rudy Giuliani at 30%, Mitt Romney at 17% and John McCain at 4%. “Boy, John McCain’s got some work to do,” noted O’Reilly after reviewing the numbers. But despite the already crowded and heated race to succeed George Bush, the Index found that “Countdown” and “Hardball” were silent on the subject last week. This kind of selective news judgment was not always the case. Some of the biggest talk topics last week such as the former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s Congressional testimony (third place at 8%), the Iraq policy debate (fourth place at 7%) and domestic terrorism (fifth place at 7%) attracted a fairly balanced mix of radio and cable talkers, both conservative and liberal. But as the two top stories illustrate, the talk genre is far from monolithic and the talk menu is quite subjective. Thus, the decision about of which stories generate attention often depends on the hosts, their pet subjects, and seemingly, their ideology. Last week, immigration (at 5%) was the sixth biggest talk story, even as it failed to make the top-10 list in the overall news Index. A closer look reveals that it was solely the province of conservative hosts like O’Reilly and Hannity as well as CNN’s Lou Dobbs, who regularly advocates a hard-line view on the subject. Conversely, even though it was the fifth biggest news story last week, the war at the home—which includes the issue of medical care at Walter Reed Hospital and other military facilities—didn’t make talk’s top-10 list. That’s largely because talk radio hosts have ignored the subject. The Talk Show Index, released each Friday, is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics are most frequently dissected and discussed in the media universe of talk and opinion—a segment of the media that spans across both prime time cable and radio. (See About the Talk Show Index.) PEJ’s Talk Show Index includes seven prime time cable shows and five radio talk hosts and is a subset of our News Coverage Index. Although cable and radio talkhosts have some things in common—both thrive on controversy and rely on opinion—a number of the subjects are treated differently on the two media platforms. The issue of gays in the military—an old wound re-opened by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace’s view that homosexuality is immoral—was the eighth biggest talk story at 4%. But it generated about 18 minutes of talk on radio compared to only eight minutes of conversation on cable. The decision of Halliburton – the big military contractor once run by Dick Cheney—to open a headquarters in Dubai was the seventh biggest talk story (at 5%) last week. But it was a considerably a hotter topic on radio (about 26 minutes) than cable (about eight minutes). Rush Limbaugh was a voice defending the Halliburton decision, noting that the company “is one of the footballs kicked around by the mad, insane left.” Several hosts, however, attacked the move as an example of the unfettered power of big business, including liberal Randi Rhodes and the conservative contrarian Michael Savage. To make his point, Savage played a clip of former President Dwight Eisenhower’s famous 1961 speech warning of the rise of a “military-industrial complex.” The domestic terrorism story last week, for instance, was driven by the news that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had confessed to involvement in a wide range of plots from 9/11 to an attempt to kill Bill Clinton. That confession, released by the Pentagon, seemed to offer relief to a White House in the middle of a tough news cycle by reminding people of the war on terror and one the country’s big successes—Mohammed’s capture. Not too surprisingly, Rhodes treated the Mohammed confession satirically on her March 15 show, declaring that “the war on terror is now over…That one man has confessed… We’re safe, safe from the scourge of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.” But a day later on his program, Savage sounded virtually the same note, sans the sarcasm. “Every crime against America and the West he said he did,” said Savage, referring to Mohammed. “I don’t believe a word of it.” Mark Jurkowitz of PEJTop Ten Stories in the Talk Show Index 3. Plame CIA Leak - 8%4. Iraq Policy Debate - 7% 5. US Domestic Terrorism - 7%6. Immigration - 5% 7. Halliburton to Move to Dubai - 5% 8. Gays in the Military - 4%9. Health Care Debate - 2%10. Events in Iraq - 1% Top Ten Stories in the broader News Coverage Index 1. Fired US Attorney Controversy - 16% 2. Campaign 2008 - 9%3. Iraq Policy Debate - 7%4. US Domestic Terrorism - 6%5. Iraq Homefront - 4%6. Events in Iraq - 4%7. Bush Trip to Latin America - 3%8. Gays in the Military - 3%9. Plame CIA Leak - 2%10. US Economic Numbers - 2% Click here to read the methodology behind the Talk Show Index. |
 Home | Numbers | Analysis | News Index | Daily Briefing | State of the News Media | Journalism Resources | About PEJ | Contact Us
 Powered by: Phase2 Technology
|
