Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Thanks to some bruising campaigns and controversial remarks, the 2010 midterms led the mainstream news agenda again last week as an outspoken gubernatorial candidate moved to the center of the narrative. And the happy conclusion to the story of the 33 trapped Chilean miners, captured on live television, finished as a strong No. 2 subject.
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.
With the 2010 midterm season upon us, bloggers of various political stripes last week focused intently on politics and the state of the U.S. economy. On Twitter, technology topics again led the way. And the most popular YouTube video was a phony satirical story about a young pop idol.
The online rhetoric heated up last week as bloggers from the left and right responded to statements from two controversial GOP figures. On Twitter, users marveled over an unorthodox space launch while on YouTube, the subject of UFOs was front and center.
Overview There are many more ways to get the news these days, and as a consequence Americans are spending more time with the news than over much of the past decade. Digital platforms are playing a larger role in news consumption, and they seem to be more than making up for modest declines in the […]
Thanks to polls, prognosticators and personal attacks, the congressional election cycle galvanized the news media last week. The economy finished as the No. 2 story, with the foreclosure crisis once again driving the narrative. And a noteworthy news industry firing, that of NPR’s Juan Williams, triggered an impassioned journalistic and political debate.
No other event or story generated much attention as the battle for Congress was finally resolved, accounting for more than half of last week’s coverage. Once the voters had spoken, the media pivoted from polls and predictions to post-mortems and projections about the new political landscape. And not surprisingly, President Obama was at the center of the narrative.