News Coverage

Summary of Findings While the press focused heavily on the political turmoil in Pakistan last week, the public was interested in other things. The three news stories the public followed most closely last week, rising oil prices, the Iraq war and the recall of Chinese-made toys, received relatively little press coverage. The public’s top story […]

With the exception of the war in Iraq, international affairs tend not to generate major media interest. But General Pervez Musharraf’s Nov. 3 declaration of emergency rule in Pakistan proved to be a dramatic exception to that rule—and there may be several disquieting reasons why.

Summary of Findings News about the Iraq war does not dominate the public’s consciousness nearly as much as it did last winter. Currently, just 16% of Americans name the Iraq war as the news story that first comes to mind when asked what has been in the news lately. In December and January, a period […]

Thanks in part to the Democrats’ spirited debate in Philadelphia, last week was the biggest week of the year for the presidential campaign in the universe of radio and cable talk shows. The main course was the Democratic front runner who got carved up by hosts and pundits of various political stripes.

Summary of Findings The 2008 presidential campaign dominated the national news last week, driven in large part by the lively Democratic debate in Philadelphia. Public interest in the campaign was up somewhat from previous weeks with 27% of Americans paying very close attention to campaign news. More than one-in-five named the campaign as the single […]

The presidential race was easily the biggest story in the media last week. But while much of the coverage focused on the attacks on Hillary Clinton at the Democrats’ Drexel University debate, the press also reassessed several other candidates.

The disaster in Southern California dominated the conversation in the talk show universe last week. Not every host played the story the same way. But for some the search was on for bad guys—with FEMA and environmentalists getting caught in the crosshairs.

Summary of Findings The California wildfires overshadowed all other news stories last week both in terms of public interest and news coverage. Four-in-ten Americans followed news about the fires very closely, making it the fourth most closely followed news story of the year. The only stories that have attracted a larger audience this year were […]

How have the news media covered the early months of the 2008 presidential election? Which candidate enjoyed the most exposure, which the best, and which the worst? With the race starting so early, did the press leap to horse race coverage from the start? A study by PEJ and Harvard’s Shorenstein Center has answers.

The wildfires that raged in Southern California last week featured numerous tales of bravery, tragedy, and plenty of missing pets. But one reason the disaster became such a major story was that journalists couldn’t resist raising the comparison—fair or not—with the 2005 fiasco on the Gulf Coast.