---
title: "Anna in the Morning (Mostly on CBS)"
description: "If the signature nightly newscasts were reticent about Smith, their morning show cousins took up the slack, giving over 15% of their first half hour of programming to the story. Network Morning News Percent of Newshole Devoted to Top 5 Stories Feb 9 – March 2, 2007 Story % Anna Nicole Smith 15 Campaign 2008 […]"
date: "2007-04-04"
authors:
  - name: "Pew Research Center"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2007/04/04/anna-in-the-morning-mostly-on-cbs/"
---

# Anna in the Morning (Mostly on CBS)

If the signature nightly newscasts were reticent about Smith, their morning show cousins took up the slack, giving over 15% of their first half hour of programming to the story.

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| Network Morning NewsPercent of Newshole Devoted to Top 5 StoriesFeb 9 - March 2, 2007 |
******
**
| Story | % |

| Anna Nicole Smith | 15 |

| Campaign 2008 | 11 |

| Snowstorms | 11 |

| Iraq Policy Debate | 6 |

| Iran | 6 |
**
| Source: PEJ News Coverage Index |

One way to evaluate interest in the death of Anna Nicole Smith is to compare that coverage with the two biggest ongoing stories.

Taken as a whole, the three broadcast network morning shows, CBS’s “Early Show,” NBC’s “Today” show and ABC’s “Good Morning America” in their newsier first half-hour of programming devoted more attention to her than to the crowded 2008 presidential race (11%). It also exceeded their coverage of Iraq during this time. Just 6% of airtime was spent on the policy debate surrounding the war, and if you combine all three areas of Iraq coverage—policy, homefront and events in Iraq which add up to 11%—Anna Nicole still came out ahead.

Yet even these across-the-board numbers for the morning shows don’t tell the whole story. Some networks were far more interested than others. From February 8 to March 2, CBS’s “The Early Show,” with anchors Harry Smith and Julie Chen, filled 20% of its time with Smith-related stories. That’s almost double the play given to the presidential campaign (11%) and to Iraq (11%).

NBC’s “Today” show was not far behind. On the program fronted by Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera, Smith coverage accounted for 17% of the newshole. That narrowly topped its coverage of the Presidential campaign (15%) and significantly exceeded the attention given to the war (10%).

ABC’s “Good Morning America” hosted by Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts evinced considerably less enthusiasm for the saga. It filled 10% of its time with news about Smith. That still represented more coverage than the 2008 campaign generated (8%), but less than the 13% devoted to all aspects of the Iraq conflict.

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**Next:** [Cable Finds a Mega-Story (Particularly Fox News Channel)](https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2007/04/04/cable-finds-a-mega-story-particularly-fox-news-channel.md)