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Project for Excellence in Journalism
Mubarak's Exit Keeps Focus on Middle East
The two weeks of protest in Egypt seemed to be settling into a pattern, and the press, ever impatient, began to turn away. Then, in two days, protest turned to revolution and coverage of the unrest in the Middle East again dominated the U.S. news agenda.
By the time the week was over, Feb. 7-13, the turmoil in Egypt filled 40% of the newshole, according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. That is down from the previous week's level of 56% -- when the crisis registered as the biggest international story in the four years PEJ has studied the media agenda through its weekly News Coverage Index. But those numbers don't tell the whole story.
In the first half of last week (Monday through Wednesday), coverage of Egypt accounted for 26% of the newshole as the stalemate between President Hosni Mubarak and the protestors seemed to drag on. But from Thursday through Sunday -- in the hours leading up to and following Mubarak's exit -- coverage roared back, filling 59% of the newshole, and even more on cable news (93%), network news (69%) and radio news (63%).
As it did, the narrative turned from a sense that the power struggle might continue, to certain reports that Mubarak would resign, to his defiant refusal, to a chaotic sense that he was no longer in control of his own destiny. And then the media narrative switched again, this time to speculation about what might happen next in Egypt and the implications for the U.S. and the region. An array of pundits and analysts lined up to somehow try and answer what MSNBC host Chris Matthews called the "many unanswered questions."
An analysis of the coverage suggests that in the climactic final days, a celebratory tone about democracy overwhelmed a fearful one about the implications for security in the Middle East. The evidence also suggests that at least one news outlet, Fox News, offered a noticeably different vantage point.
The Egyptian protests began in earnest on Jan. 25 and led to the fall of Mubarak on Feb. 11. And in the three weeks from Jan. 24-Feb. 13, the Middle East story accounted for more than one-third (39%) of all the coverage measured by PEJ's Index. The second biggest story in those three weeks, the U.S. economy, generated less than one-quarter of that coverage, at 9%.
Last week, no media sector covered the extraordinary events in Egypt as extensively as cable news -- a platform that often devotes more coverage to the biggest story of the week than the media generally. Events in the Middle East accounted for 59% of all the airtime on cable news studied.
As is often the case with major breaking events, CNN, which has more foreign bureaus and reporters than any other cable network and whose programs are more oriented to breaking news than to talk, devoted considerably more of its airtime studied last week (83%) to the story than did MSNBC (48%) and Fox (43%).
Although no subject generated anywhere near the coverage Egypt did, the economy was the No. 2 story last week, accounting for 10% of the coverage on news from the housing sector and the job market as well as Barack Obama's efforts to mend fences with business. That was followed, at 3%, by news about the Obama administration itself, some of which focused on the president's personal habits.
The No. 4 story, at 3%, was coverage of U.S anti-terror efforts in a week in which the Homeland Security secretary raised red flags about the threat level. And the fifth biggest subject, 2%, was a media story -- the sale of the liberal Huffington Post site to AOL.
. . .
In order to monitor the contours of the coverage, researchers identified a series of significant terms related to the ongoing events in Egypt. Six of them—including “democracy,” “triumph,” “celebrate” and “pluralism”—seemed to have positive connotations. Another six—including “theocracy,” “Muslim Brotherhood,” “extremism” and “radical”—appeared to have more worrisome connotations.
PEJ then tracked the use of those terms on 17.5 hours of cable news and network news broadcasts on February 10 and 11. Of the five terms that appeared most frequently on the programs, four of them -- “democracy,” “freedom,” “peace” and “celebrate” -- had upbeat implications. Only one, the “Muslim Brotherhood,” would seem to indicate concern or negativity. Moreover, the group of positive-leaning terms appeared about three times as often as the more negative ones.
At the same time, the search did reveal some differences in the use of key words between the Fox News Channel and its two rivals -- CNN and MSNBC. For example, Fox used the term Muslim Brotherhood about five times as frequently as the other two combined and mentioned Israel about twice as often as CNN and MSNBC combined.