Search results for: “gun control”

Last week, the health care debate remained the lead story as talk hosts argued about whether the confrontations between protestors and politicians were genuine or choreographed. And thanks to a dramatic prisoner release in North Korea, a former president made almost as much news as the current one.

Bloggers last week debated whether the worldwide swine flu outbreak was a serious public health menace or a case of excessive media hype. And Arlen Specter’s change of parties stirred a partisan debate over the state of the GOP.

There wasn’t much good news in the media campaign narrative for either John McCain or Barack Obama last week. The big McCain story was a staff shakeup that exposed internal problems in the campaign. Meanwhile Obama was trying to prove his patriotism, avoid charges of flip-flopping, and minimize the damage from a surrogate controversy.

Barack Obama’s efforts to heal the wounds of the primary battle and to reconcile with the Clintons were the major story lines in last week’s coverage of the Presidential campaign. And they’re a big reason why the Democratic nominee generated about twice as much coverage as did John McCain.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama attracted more attention from the press than John McCain last week. But the two Democrats were often engaged in serious damage control while the GOP’s candidate was basking in some pretty positive coverage.

It’s probably no surprise that the college campus massacre proved to be the biggest talk show topic of the year. But while there were plenty of subplots to talk about, radio and cable hosts managed to seize on some of “hot button” issues to emerge from the worst shooting spree in the nation’s history.

The Attorney General faced a grilling from Congress, the Supreme Court weighed in on abortion rights, hundreds were slaughtered in a single day in Iraq, and a vicious storm wreaked havoc on the East Coast. But each of those events last week was completely overshadowed by the media’s non-stop coverage of the horrific events that unfolded on the campus of Virginia Tech.