News Habits & Media

With the apparent demise of the immigration reform bill, a major Supreme Court decision on race, and a few natural disasters, last week was jammed with big news events. But nothing got the media’s attention like a couple of suspicious cars parked in London.

The race for the White House was easily the most discussed story on the radio and cable talk shows last week. But the debate over the hotly contested immigration bill also bubbled over on the airwaves. And one of the top talk topics even involved a call for more political diversity along the radio dial.

Summary of Findings In the first six months of 2007, the Iraq war has captivated the public’s interest and eclipsed most of the year’s other major news stories, including the 2008 presidential election, two major Washington political scandals, and news from other international trouble spots. Iraq has been the most closely followed news story in […]

Was it a tease, a trial balloon, or a trivial matter? New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision to shed his GOP label sure had the media buzzing last week. And while dramatic events inside Iraq generated substantial coverage, the policy debate over the war has slipped onto the press back burner in recent weeks.

The 30,000 employees of Private Security Companies currently operating inside Iraq represent a new element in modern-day warfare. They are armed, suffer casualties, are paid by the U.S. government, and perform tasks once done by the nation’s military. But a new study by PEJ reveals that for the most part, these forces have operated below the media radar.

The impassioned debate on the talk airwaves wouldn’t go away last week as the once-imperiled immigration bill appeared to get a new life. And that had some conservative hosts putting former GOP allies on their enemies list. The talkers were also more interested in HBO’s gang wars than the Hamas-Fatah battles.

Summary of Findings In spite of their general criticisms of the media, Americans have good things to say about the major broadcast and cable news networks. The public draws few distinctions among the news divisions of the big three broadcast networks. There is much less consensus about the major cable news networks. Nearly half of […]

It took Presidential intervention, but the changing fortunes of the controversial immigration reform legislation was the leading story last week. Still, U.S. domestic politics were almost overshadowed violence in the Mideast. And why did the ending of a cable series make the nightly news?

The race for the White House was the most popular talk show story last week and Paris Hilton’s unscheduled release from jail was also a hot topic. But the big news may have been the Senate’s failure to pass an immigration measure, an event that seemed like a victory for a number of talk hosts.

Summary of Findings Paris Hilton’s legal problems became a national news story last week. Coverage of Hilton being released from and then returned to jail filled 4% of the newshole, making it the fifth most heavily covered story of the week. Roughly a third of Americans (34%) said they followed news about Hilton very or […]