Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
In a week in which the president defended his Libya policy to the American public, the Middle East again topped the news agenda. But coverage of that subject and the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake tailed off a bit last week as both crises defied any quick resolution.
For a second week in a row, the media focused on the economy and away from foreign affairs. Last week, driven by a Presidential speech, the government shutdown was replaced with a larger debate about national fiscal priorities. Lurking in the background was the 2012 presidential race, a story that gave tycoon and Obama birth certificate skeptic Donald Trump a platform of his own.
The media narrative moved from overseas to the Beltway last week as budget battles trumped press interest in Libyan fighting and Japanese nuclear worries. The question is whether a long run of dominant international news will now give way to ongoing coverage of domestic concerns.
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.
A new Pew Forum report on the size, distribution and growth of the global Muslim population finds that the world’s Muslim population is expected to increase by about 35% in the next 20 years, but it is expected to grow at a slower pace in the next two decades than it did in the previous two decades.
The story from Egypt seemed to ebb and then peak last week, leading to a rush of coverage once the demonstrations turned into a successful revolution. No other story came close to generating that level of coverage last week. Now comes the hard part—understanding what will happen after Hosni Mubarak.
But Rate of Growth Expected at Slower Pace than Past Two Decades Washington, D.C. — The world’s Muslim population is expected to increase by about 35% in the next 20 years, rising from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.2 billion by 2030, according to a new, comprehensive report released today by the Pew Research Center’s […]
In a conference call for journalists, Pew Forum staff members discussed the findings from The Future of the Global Muslim Population.
The unveiling of the president’s fiscal blueprint as well as a fight over budget priorities in Wisconsin helped push coverage of economic issues to the top of the news agenda last week for the first time in two months. And the media turned their attention away from Egypt to neighboring nations.