Project for Excellence in Journalism

A Washington Standoff and a London Scandal Lead the News

by Mark Jurkowitz, Associate Director, Project for Excellence in Journalism
July 19, 2011

The continuing drama over the debt standoff in Washington last week drove coverage of the economy to its second highest mark in 2011 and the highest level in three months.

Meanwhile press attention to a mushrooming media scandal also doubled in the past week.

From July 11-17, the U.S. economy -- driven by the stalemated talks over the budget deficit and debt ceiling -- accounted for more than a third (37%) of the newshole, according to the News Coverage Index from Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

That marks the fourth consecutive week that the subject has been the No. 1 story. In that span, coverage has more than doubled -- jumping from 16% to 37%.

In the past two weeks, the skirmishing between the White House and Republicans over the debt ceiling has eclipsed the 2012 presidential race as the nation's top political story, with campaign coverage slumping to low single digits.

In particular, the economic debate has supplanted the election as the political wedge topic. The subject consumed nearly three-quarters (74%) of the airtime studied by PEJ on the ideological cable and radio talk shows last week. And there were some dramatic twists and turns in the storyline.

"With just weeks remaining before the debt-ceiling deadline, this week in Washington played out like five days of ‘General Hospital,'" declared the July 16 Washington Post. "There were plenty of theatrics-raised voices, name-calling, even a dramatic exit by President Obama."

Attention to the No. 2 story, the metastasizing phone hacking scandal in Rupert Murdoch's media empire, doubled to 12% last week-up from 6% the previous week when it was the third-biggest story.

It is unusual for a media story to have significant staying power in the news narrative. But more dominos fell last week -- including the company abandoning efforts to buy the BSkyB television operation and the resignations of former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks and Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton, two of Murdoch's closest confidants. For the week, Murdoch himself was the second most prominent newsmaker, behind only President Obama. And last week's coverage did not include the arrest of Brooks and resignation of top officials at Scotland Yard.

The war in Afghanistan was the No. 3 story (at 5%), with coverage focusing on the assassination of President Hamid Karzai's half brother and the awarding of the Medal of Honor to Leroy Petry for his valor during combat in Afghanistan.

Next, at 4%, was the 2012 presidential race, which only two weeks earlier had registered at 13% of the newshole. The major newsmakers were reports that Obama had raised a whopping $86 million in the second quarter and controversy over whether Michelle Bachmann's husband Marcus runs a counseling service that tries to change homosexuals into heterosexuals.

The fifth-biggest story, 3%, was the continuing unrest in the Middle East. Last week, the U.S. waded further into the violence and instability plaguing Syria by declaring that President Bashar Assad had lost the legitimacy as a result of his crackdown on protestors.

Read the full report at journalism.org