Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Use of the internet for politics did not give particular advantage to either party. Still, online political activists favored Democratic candidates. Republican and Democratic voters were equally likely to say that the internet was their main source of election news (17% among each group). In contrast, there were notable differences between Republican and Democratic voters […]
Nancy Pelosi's swearing in as the first female Speaker of the House turned the Congressional transfer of power into the top story of the inaugural edition of PEJ's weekly News Coverage Index. Gerald Ford's funeral, the policy debate in Iraq, and Saddam Hussein's hanging also were among the top stories in the American news media the first week of 2007.
The deteriorating conflict in Iraq was still the leading story line in the news last week. But the media were also tested by a terror false alarm, a major campaign trail gaffe, lethal weather, and the tragic death of a great athlete, according to the PEJ News Coverage Index.
Presidential politics and Iraq managed to attract their fair share of coverage last week. But an allegedly homicidal astronaut and a troubled pinup girl really commandeered the media’s attention. The coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith was cast as sociology but it had the intensity of voyeurism.
The increasingly crowded 2008 presidential field and the intensifying political battle over Iraq competed with President Bush’s State of the Union Address for media attention last week. But the PEJ index of the news also reveals that a series of smoldering global hotspots are now attracting more coverage.