Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Summary of Findings While the media focused on the emotionally-charged debate over plans to build an Islamic mosque and cultural center near the World Trade Center site in New York City last week, the public continued to track the Gulf oil leak. About a third of the public (34%) says they followed news about the […]
A presidential mention, and intense interest from talk show hosts, pushed a proposed Islamic center in New York City to the top of the news agenda last week. Meanwhile, a milestone in the drawdown of troops in Iraq attracted more media coverage than the war has received in more than a year.
As the campaign for control of Congress entered its final month, election news once again dominated the headlines—overshadowing almost everything else. Some housing news drove coverage of the economy while President Obama’s suggestion to lengthen the school year helped make education one of the week’s top stories.
In a week in which economic news nearly hit a three-month high, cable talk shows were dominated by the resignation of a federal employee whose comments on race were taken out of context by a conservative website. Meanwhile, in the Gulf of Mexico, the debate was about the merits of plugging the BP oil well with a “topkill” or a “bottom kill.”
The blogosphere resembled one of those old CNN Crossfire shows last week as liberals and conservatives frequently faced off on such issues as federal assistance programs, charges of bigotry and opposition to President Obama.
Two familiar stories—an economy slow to recover and an oil leak slow to be stopped—generated the most press attention last week. But there was plenty of politics as well including two hot button issues—same-sex marriage and illegal immigration—and the mid-term elections. And after one week of big headlines, Afghanistan coverage plunged.
In addition to looking at how the mainstream media covered African Americans, this study also examined how issues of race were treated in the African American press. To do so, we looked at coverage of the biggest race story of the year, the Henry Louis Gates arrest and its aftermath. For this separate analysis, […]