The latest Project for Excellence in Journalism talker topic index shows them both following and departing from the usual pattern during the week of 6/10-15/07. The usual pattern is for them to take the top stories and amplify them, and they did so at the top of the chart.
In a week with no single big story, immigration was #1 with a modest 10%, and talkers dutifully followed the norm by taking that ball and running it up to 17%. But they went off on their own tangent when it came to intramural Palestinian strife, #2 in the news hole with 9%. Talkers knocked it all the way down to #8/3%, focusing instead on the 2008 campaign (15%) and, at a distant #3, Iraq policy 8%, showing that for talkers, it was a diffused week as well.
