Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The study, How News Happens, involved several different methodological phases. All aspects of the analysis were performed in house by PEJ staff researchers. Identifying the Media Universe The first step was to identify all the local media outlets in the Baltimore, Md. metropolitan area. This occurred in the summer of 2009. For outlets with multiple […]
On Monday, July 20, over dinner with legislators at his mansion, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley revealed how he proposed to cut nearly $300 million from the state budget. The next day, O’Malley provided details to the press, and on Thursday invited the public to make comments and suggestions about the cuts on a new website. […]
Health care reform received its highest level of media coverage last week than at any time since the legislative battle began. That made it the 18th biggest story in any week since PEJ began its real time monitoring of the national media. And most of that coverage focused on the political impact of the law.
Last week the dominant subject among bloggers was a global poll that illustrated strong sentiment for treating cyberspace as a kind of universal public utility. On Twitter, technology was once again the focus. And a senior citizen disc jockey was the week’s YouTube favorite.
Attitudes and actions Over time, users have become less likely to express concern about the amount of information available about them online. [14.numoffset=”14″ As is noted elsewhere in this report, this survey was fielded before Facebook announced the most recent and controversial changes to its default privacy settings.] To even the most casual news observer, […]
The media last week were focused squarely on politicians. While Obama’s health care gamble was the top story, Jim Bunning’s quixotic Senate crusade, a Texas gubernatorial primary and the resignation of a powerful House committee chairman were also big news. The only non-politics story in the top five was the tragedy in Chile.
Summary of Findings Americans tracked the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti more closely than any other major news last week, but also kept a close watch on two intertwined stories: the fate of health care legislation in Washington and the outcome of last week’s special election for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. Nearly half […]
Summary of Findings In a week when the media focused heavily on Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address and the state of the economy, Americans continued to track news about the earthquake in Haiti more closely than any other major news story. Four-in-ten say they followed news about the aftermath of the earthquake […]
The Project for Excellence in Journalism did not issue a News Index report this week, but the data is available.