Weather makes a dent in campaign coverage

Technically, we suppose, the earthquake which rocked China cannot be considered a weather event, but it combined with the Myanmar cyclone and numerous lesser events to grab a significant share of the newshole during the week of 5/12/08-5/18/08, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism. In fact, the folks at network television even elevated the earthquake above the campaign.

The 2% edge that story received in that one medium was not nearly enough to overcome the continuing election tunnel vision exhibited by cable TV, which bestowed 74% of its available time to the story and contributed to its overall 37% share. Click on the headline to see the chart.

Story	Overall	Newspaper	Online	Net. TV	Cable TV	Radio
2008 Campaign	46%	27%	29%	41%	75%	56%
Myanmar cyclone	15%	15%	31%	18%	6%	6%
US economy	5%	9%	6%	4%	1%	1%
Immigration	2%	6%	x	x	1%	x
Gas/oil prices	2%	2%	3%	3%	1%	3%
Microsoft/Yahoo	1%	4%	2%	x	x	x
Iraq events	1%	2%	x	2%	x	x
Russia	1%	x	3%	x	x	x
Israel turns 60	1%	2%	x	x	x	x
Iraq homefront	1%	x	x	2%	x	1%
Israel/Palenstein	x	2%	x	x	x	x
AR/MO storms	x	2%	x	x	x	x
Lebanon violence	x	x	2%	x	1%	x
North Korea nukes	x	x	1%	x	x	x
Olympics	x	x	1%	x	x	x
Austrian house/hostages	x	x	3%	x	x	x
Kentucky Derby	x	x	x	3%	x	1%
Jenna Bush wedding	x	x	x	2%	1%	x
Philadelphia police beating	x	x	x	1%	x	x
San Diego U. drug bust	x	x	x	1%	2%	x
Texas polygamy raid	x	x	x	x	1%	x
Iraq policy	x	x	x	x	1%	x
China	x	x	x	x	x	2%
War on terror	x	x	x	x	x	2%
Iran	x	x	x	x	x	1%
Pakistan	x	x	x	x	x	1%

Source: Project for Excellence in Journalism

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