Tom Rosentiel

With desperate automakers asking Congress for $34 billion, Barack Obama unveiling key Cabinet members, and the U.S. scrambling to ease tensions between India and Pakistan, the three top storylines in the news intertwined last week.

A wrap-up of possibly overlooked polling trends and end-of-campaign happenings.

For a host of reasons, the new administration needs to develop a national broadband strategy but research suggests that users must be central actors in its design.

Although no other media stories came close to rivaling the economy’s troubles and the emerging face of the incoming administration, one other story drew sensational coverage: piracy on the high seas.

Still, ideological labels don’t always predict policy opinions; e.g.,about half of self-described conservatives say that all or some of the Bush tax cuts should be repealed while many liberals support off-shore drilling.

The country’s weakened economy rivaled the presidential transition as top story of the week while much coverage focused on two women who ran losing campaigns for the executive branch.

Barack Obama won only 53% of the vote on Election Day, but he is getting a landslide greeting from the American public with voters giving Obama better grades for his conduct during the campaign than any presidential candidate since 1988.

This year, 66% of those under age 30 voted for Barack Obama making the disparity between young voters and other age groups larger than in any presidential election since exit polling began in 1972.

In remarks at a dinner at the Newseum hosted by the Roper Center, Pew Research Center President Andrew Kohut analyzed the voter preferences revealed in exit and post-election polls and their implications for the incoming administration.

When the campaign was finally over, the media almost immediately viewed Barack Obama's victory as a transformational event, and a subject that had been in some ways taboo moved front and center - race.