Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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 closely tracked the final stages of the long-running debate over health care reform legislation last week as the story dominated media coverage. More than half (53%) of the public says the debate was the story they followed most closely, while the story was the focus of 37% of news coverage. Half […]
Following an interview with one of the leading scientists in the so-called “Climate-gate” controversy, bloggers engaged in a passionate exchange over the merits of climate change science. On Twitter, an airline’s treatment of an overweight celebrity was the top story. And on YouTube, the tragic death of an Olympic luger was a leading driver of traffic.
The economy was the top story last week, but it faced stiff competition from U.S. medals in Vancouver, fighting in Afghanistan, a retiring senator in Indiana and an attack on the IRS in Texas. And then there was Tiger.
An anti-abortion ad run during the Super Bowl and opposition to gay rights were the most popular subjects on social media last week. On YouTube, Apple’s iPad dominated all five of the most-viewed news videos.
For the third time in a row, health care reform was the top subject in the blogosphere last week, followed by another common online topic: global warming. On Twitter, developments with the world’s largest energy particle accelerator topped the list. And on YouTube, an awkward moment in Haiti featuring two former presidents attracted more than 3 million views.
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.
The debate over the passage of health care reform reached unprecedented levels on blogs and Twitter last week, and the debate focused on both the value of the bill and the confrontations that surrounded its passing.
With the White House producing a post-mortem on what went wrong, the Christmas bombing plot led the news agenda last week. And it was joined by a number of related terrorism topics in the news, harkening back to the days of nervous post 9/11 headlines.
This week’s News Coverage Index examines the agenda in one media sector—daily newspapers. And it reveals that the unanswered questions about the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner were still dominating coverage a week after the event occurred. Meanwhile, the state of the economy was the week’s second-biggest topic.