Though the economy topped the mainstream news agenda, Obama’s troop drawdown announcement gave Afghanistan its biggest week of coverage in a year. And while mainstay subjects—the campaign and the Mid-East—continued to make news, the surprise arrest of one of the FBI’s most wanted dominated the end of the week.
The 2012 campaign was the top story last week as Republican hopefuls met in a New Hampshire debate that produced some media winners and losers. Worries about the economy were a close No. 2. And three weeks after the initial scandal broke, Anthony Weiner’s resignation was major news.
The media were riveted last week by a made-for-headlines scandal involving one of the more combative members of Congress. The U.S. economy, the chaos in the Mideast and the emerging presidential race also generated significant attention, but they could not rival a story about the intersection of sex and politics.
Bad economic news became a political story last week as analysts evaluated the impact on President Obama’s fortunes. Sarah Palin’s bus tour drew as much attention as Mitt Romney’s presidential announcement with the campaign generating its highest level of coverage yet. And two political scandals provoked much speculation and one indictment.
The fallout from the killing of Osama bin Laden continued to generate the most attention of any story in the mainstream media last week, though coverage fell off substantially. On cable news, where politics often dictates news agenda, the level of attention varied widely: CNN devoted the most attention to the story and Fox gave it the least.
The latest outbreak of violent spring storms proved to be the biggest weather story in PEJ’s four years of tracking news coverage. An election in New York State turned into a major economic story and the prospect of a Palin candidacy helped drive coverage of the 2012 presidential campaign last week.
The fighting in the Mideast, and especially Libya, topped the news last week, narrowly ahead of the U.S. economy. But perhaps the most interesting development was the emergence of the presidential campaign as a major story—thanks in large part to one controversial candidate-in-waiting.
Continued fighting in Libya and the union faceoff in Wisconsin fueled the No. 1 and No. 2 stories overall last week. But the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on Friday March 11 quickly overwhelmed every other story—including a controversial hearing on Islamic terrorism.
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