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Project for Excellence in Journalism
WikiLeaks Data Dump Drives News
Two topics dominated the news agenda last week. Attention to the economy reached its highest level in 20 months and a major document dump cemented WikiLeaks' status as a significant newsmaker.
From Nov. 29 to Dec. 5, the economy accounted for 28% of the newshole studied, according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. That represents the most coverage devoted to the subject since the week of March 23-29, 2009 (43%), shortly after Barack Obama became president when Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner unveiled his plan to clean up "toxic assets" in banks.
Three events drove last week's economic coverage -- negotiations over the fate of the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, the debt commission vote on its proposal to reduce the deficit and a surprisingly gloomy jobs report late in the week.
The release of thousands of State Department cables by the WikiLeaks site was the No. 2 story of the week, filling 16% of the newshole in PEJ's News Interest Index, which includes the front pages of newspapers, a sampling of cable news, talk and news radio, the top stories on news websites, and morning and evening broadcast news programs. This marks the third time since the summer that WikiLeaks' dissemination of classified documents has been a top five story. (Information about the Afghanistan war accounted for 13% of the newshole from July 26-Aug. 1 and material pertaining to the Iraq conflict filled 2% of the newshole from Oct. 18-24.)
Last week's WikiLeaks saga included two key components. One was the reaction to the released material and its potential impact on U.S. diplomacy. Another was an intensified focus on the site's founder Julian Assange, who was called a "high tech terrorist" by one American politician and found himself the target of an Interpol search in connection with a sexual assault case.
Attracting significantly less attention, the third biggest story of the week (5%) was the continuing debate over repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy for gay servicemen and women. Coverage was driven by the release of a Pentagon report surveying military personnel about the issue and Capitol Hill hearings on the subject.
That was followed by the continuing fallout from the 2010 midterm elections, which made up 4% of the newshole studied. Some of the commentary focused on the agenda for the newly strengthened Republican Party. Afghanistan was the No. 5 story of the week (3%), which included coverage of an attack that killed six Americans and President Obama's surprise visit to the country on Dec. 3.