Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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After building for more than a month, the Beltway Battle over the debt ceiling exploded as a story last week, accounting for more than half of the newshole. No other story even generated double digit coverage in a week dominated by a single subject.
The January 8 Arizona assault stunned the nation and became one of the biggest stories in recent years. A PEJ analysis of mainstream and social media coverage and commentary reveals which element of the story made the most news, whether President Obama’s speech changed the narrative, how Sarah Palin was covered and how much attention the issue of gun control generated.
Attention to the health of both Gabrielle Giffords and civic discourse helped fuel continuing coverage of the Tucson shooting spree last week. Some White House summitry, hard times for state treasuries and another round in the legislative battle over health care reform also generated significant coverage.
The online conversation last week focused heavily on the aftermath of the Arizona shooting spree that left six dead and 13 wounded. The most prominent element debated, according to a separate PEJ report released earlier this week, was the level of vitriol in political rhetoric today.
The online media joined the mainstream press last week in focusing most of their attention on the killing spree at the Fort Hood Army post. Some of that conversation focused on the background and motivation of the suspect, but much also evaluated the pros and cons of real-time newsgathering.
On Saturday morning, July 18, a 34-year-old Baltimore man named Shawn Sinclair shot and wounded two city police officers before being wounded and detained himself in a gunfight that culminated a wild, drug-infused morning of violence. The incident provided a window into the way breaking violent crime stories, a staple of local media, are covered […]
The next most prominent Hispanic-related storyline, at 15% of the newshole, was the drug war in Mexico, which was at the height of its intensity in February. Much of the attention to the drug war was tied to specific events along the U.S.-Mexico border. The story filled just 1% of the total newshole during the […]
Parents all around the world don’t need social scientists to tell them what they already know: Adolescence and early adulthood are stages of life when their children are prone to make bad decisions. In the case of Latino youths in America, there’s a notable demographic twist in the pattern of risky behaviors at this phase […]
