News Habits & Media

A sparring match between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama helped make the 2008 campaign the biggest story in the news last week. And a strange judge kept the Anna Nicole Smith case in the headlines. But it was a Washington Post investigation that created the biggest waves.

Summary of Findings The public and the news media divided their attention last week among the top international stories, harsh winter weather, politics and the ongoing saga surrounding the death of Anna Nicole Smith. The Iraq war remained the No. 1 story both in terms of public interest and news coverage, however, the public hung […]

Even in a week with North Korea, Iran, Anna Nicole, and Hillary on the front burner, it’s U.S. strategy in the Iraq war that commands the talk airwaves. And the dominance of that debate reveals something about the nature of the talk show culture.

For much of 2007, the conflict in Iraq has dominated news coverage. Last week, a scenario that had largely been confined to a few cable hosts—the role of Iran and the possibility of war there—made its way onto the media agenda.

Summary of Findings Most Americans feel the press has gone overboard in covering the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Fully 61% believe the Smith story has been overcovered, far more than the number saying that about any other recent story. Even so, a sizable minority (11%) followed Smith’s death more closely than any of last […]

Student journalists and school personnel have been known to clash on occasion over what news is fit to print. Now precedent-setting legislation wending its way through the Washington State House is intended to give students more control over and responsibility for the content of the school publication.

There was plenty of conversation about Rudy Giuliani and Scooter Libby on the radio and cable talk shows last week. And the debate over Iraq continued to be the biggest topic. But the mysterious death of a blonde bombshell pushed everything else to the sidelines, as the talkers took up time wondering about her appeal.

Presidential politics and Iraq managed to attract their fair share of coverage last week. But an allegedly homicidal astronaut and a troubled pinup girl really commandeered the media’s attention. The coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith was cast as sociology but it had the intensity of voyeurism.

A new study finds a proliferation of “citizen media” web sites that fit somewhere on the media spectrum between the street-corner soapbox and the local daily newspaper. While concluding that these grassroots outlets are successful at creating community conversations, the report on this emerging landscape also reveals that many are tenuous, shoestring operations.

The nation’s radio and cable talk shows can’t resist talking about the blockbuster hot button issues like Iraq and the presidential campaign. But on subjects ranging from global warming and tensions with Iran to the Scooter Libby trial and the death of Molly Ivins, the talk conversation is very much shaped by the hosts’ own agendas.