Project for Excellence in Journalism

SOTU Overshadowed by Middle East Unrest

February 1, 2011

Last week's news landscape was a tale of two stories -- one much-anticipated event in Washington and an unexpected drama unfolding about 6,000 miles away. In the first part of last week, the media focused on President Obama's Jan. 25 State of the Union speech. In the latter half, Egyptian protests that began to look like a revolution dominated coverage, virtually drowning out the president's emphasis on re-tooling the U.S. economy.

By the time it was over, events in the Middle East -- most notably the Egyptian uprising against President Hosni Mubarak -- was the No. 1 story from Jan. 24-30. They accounted for 20% of the week's coverage according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Coverage of the State of the Union speech, and the reaction to it, trailed closely behind, filling 17% of the coverage studied by PEJ's weekly News Coverage Index.

That was not what President Obama had planned. In the first three days of the week, his address accounted for much more of the media narrative (28%) than it would by week's end.

Much of the coverage of the speech featured post-mortems and an emerging consensus that it was centrist, careful and politically sound. (One poll, from CNN/Opinion Research, had 84% of the public offering either a very or somewhat a positive response.)

Coverage of the rapidly spiraling events in the Middle East began slowly, but picked up momentum as crowds of Egyptian protestors swelled in defiance of the government. As the week went on, coverage turned more U.S.-centric, as pundits and analysts debated the potential impact the instability in Egypt would have here as well as the wise course of action for the Obama administration.

While attention to the Mideast upheaval in Tunisia, Lebanon, Yemen and Egypt accounted for only 8% of the overall coverage early in the week, from Jan. 27 through Jan. 30 it skyrocketed to 36%.

A third story generated significant attention last week as well -- the U.S. economy, at 13% of the newshole. That narrative was fueled by a disquieting estimate from the Congressional Budget Office that the budget deficit in 2011 would reach $1.5 trillion.

The week's No. 4 story (at 4%) was a major midweek winter storm that roared along the East Coast, stranding rush-hour commuters in Washington and dumping accumulation on an already shell-shocked Boston.

The fifth-biggest story is one rapidly moving off the media radar screen. The aftermath of the Jan. 8 Tucson shootings that killed six and seriously wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords accounted for just 4% of the coverage last week. That is down dramatically from 17% the previous week and from a stratospheric 57% the week prior to that.

Continue reading the full report at journalism.org.