Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
On October 17, PEJ issued a detailed report assessing the tone and level of coverage of the presidential candidates from a wide swath of news outlets and blogs from May 2 through October 9. This report updates that data through November 27. In the last seven weeks, two former frontrunners (Cain and Perry) saw the […]
Respondents’ thoughts Descriptions of future economic stress and economic divides were prevalent in responses to this survey question on higher education. While some who chose the first scenario said educational institutions are too static and will not move forward quickly to implement new digitally assisted approaches, others who chose that scenario said such change is […]
Taken overall, businessman Herman Cain’s campaign narrative in the news media does not reflect his current standing in the polls. From May to October, Cain was the No. 7 newsmaker among Republicans, finishing ahead of only Santorum, Paul and Huntsman. And the tone of that coverage was moderately more positive than negative. But starting in […]
Mitt Romney The former Massachusetts governor-who has been at or near the front of the GOP pack for much of the campaign-has generated plenty of attention on Twitter. But the conversation about him there was far harsher than in blogs or news coverage. From May 2-November 27, Romney was the second-most discussed Republican candidate on […]
There were no late summer news doldrums last week as the apparent conclusion of a civil war and a pair of natural disasters topped the news. The rebel takeover of Libya generated the biggest week of attention to that conflict in five months while an earthquake and a hurricane brought the media focus back to the Northeast United States.
The growing News of the World scandal drew increased media attention last week, but not enough to stanch interest in the debt deliberations in Washington, which have fueled the top story for five weeks running. A record-breaking heat wave, the end of an era at NASA and a relatively quiet presidential campaign also ranked among the top stories last week.