Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
In a crowded news week, the economy was the top story, followed by an intensifying 2012 presidential race. The week ended with news of a new terror warning and sober reflection on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
Even after it had passed, the hurricane that slammed the East Coast continued to be the top news story across the U.S. last week as damage mounted. A scheduling skirmish over a presidential speech made the economy the No. 2 story while the hunt for a deposed dictator was a smaller story than his fleeing the capital.
Economic coverage once again dominated the news last week, and this time the focus was on the volatility of the stock market. And with Iowa in the spotlight, the 2012 presidential election re-emerged in the media narrative after several weeks of being buried by bad economic 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.
Overview Negative opinions about the performance of news organizations now equal or surpass all-time highs on nine of 12 core measures the Pew Research Center has been tracking since 1985. However, these bleak findings are put into some perspective by the fact that news organizations are more trusted sources of information than are many other […]
One of the long-lingering questions in online news is whether Google is more a help or a hindrance to news producers? Does Google drive more traffic to a news site or pull more potential traffic away by offering users the headline and first paragraph on their Google News site and selling advertising against that content? […]
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.