Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The stalemate over deficit reduction and the entry of another candidate into the crowded 2012 presidential race made the economy and election the two leading stories last week. Meanwhile media attention to Afghanistan fell dramatically, highlighting the episodic and uneven coverage of that decade-old conflict.
Coverage of the economy ballooned last week with the high stakes political skirmishing over the deficit and debt limit, while on the other side of the Atlantic the scandal enveloping Rupert Murdoch’s media empire generated a significant increase in media attention in the U.S.
Coverage of the U.S. economy led the news agenda for the third week in a row, thanks to some drama in the deficit talks. The unexpected conclusion to a high profile trial generated plenty of press attention while a major British media scandal made its way across the Atlantic.
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.
As the Tea Party has evolved from a grass-roots movement to become a major force on Capitol Hill, public views of the Tea Party have grown more negative. Slightly more disagree with the Tea Party than agree with the movement – a reversal in public evaluations from a year ago. The latest national survey by […]
With an April 8 deadline approaching for a possible shutdown of the federal government, the public was divided over whether congressional Republicans or the Obama administration would be more to blame if a shutdown occurs.