Project for Excellence in Journalism

GOP Contenders Grab Top Attention

by Jesse Holcomb, Research Analyst, Project for Excellence in Journalism
June 21, 2011

The 2012 presidential campaign generated its highest level of coverage to date as a large cast of GOP candidates squared off in the New Hampshire debate last week.

The race for the White House led the news agenda, accounting for 15% of the newshole from June 13-19, according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. That was nearly double the coverage (8%) one week earlier and topped the previous high of 12% (May 30-June 5) when former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney entered the race and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin embarked on a highly publicized bus tour.

Last week's debate at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H. was not the first of this campaign cycle, but in some ways, the media treated it like it was. Last month's kickoff debate in South Carolina was attended by mostly long-shot candidates, and was overwhelmed by the avalanche of media attention to the death of Osama bin Laden, which had occurred just four days earlier. That week (May 2-8), the campaign accounted for just 3% of the newshole.

This time around, the stars of the media narrative seemed to be Romney, a leading contender for the nomination, and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who used the debate to formally announce her candidacy. Both Romney and Bachmann were declared the winners of the debate in many press post-mortems. Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, however, was not so fortunate.

But the focus of the event -- and coverage of it -- was Barack Obama, whose health care overhaul and economic policies became the primary target for a slate of contenders more concerned at this early stage with establishing familiarity with voters rather than attacking each other.

Lately, there has been enough bad news on the economic front to help provide ammunition for those GOP attacks. And last week, the gloomy news again seemed to exceed the good tidings. Overall, attention to jobs, the foreign and domestic debt crises and other woes accounted for 14% of the coverage, making the economy the No. 2 story.

These two intertwined subjects -- the presidential campaign and the economy -- have accounted for a quarter of the mainstream news agenda in the past four weeks with the economy ranking No. 1 at 14% and the campaign coming next at 11%.

Embattled New York Rep. Anthony Weiner stayed in the news as he gave in to mounting pressure and announced his resignation on June 16 following several weeks of unwelcome attention to his sexual behavior online. It was the No. 3 story at 10% of the newshole last week -- a drop-off from 17% the previous week.

At No. 4 last week was unrest in the Middle East (6%), dominated by coverage of the continuing violence in Libya and Syria. News outlets turned to the congressional debate over the legality of a continued U.S. military role in Libya, while government crackdowns in Syria caused massive refugee resettlements in nearby Turkey.

A return to the topic of global terrorism in the wake of Osama bin Laden accounted for 4% of the newshole, making it the No. 5 story for the week. Two events drove that coverage: the ascension of Ayman al Zawahiri as the new leader of al Qaeda and Pakistan's arrest of five informants who had helped lead U.S. forces to bin Laden.

Learn more about these stories by reading the full report at journalism.org.