Hogging 55% of the overall media newshole, the 2008 election continued to dominate all topics in American journalism, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism tabulations for the week of 2/4/08-2/10/08. Various Iraq topics (including events there, the debate, homefront stories and other related Mideast topics), which could be counted on to dominate coverage throughout most of 2007, barely registered, with a mere 1% of total media attention going to Iraq homefront coverage.
The previous week, the election consumed 51% of the hole. Most of the five component media of the PEJ chart actually posted consistent coverage week-to-week; the big change was a jump from 33% to 45% in the newspaper category. The troubled economy, which had been holding the #2 slot in recent weeks, was knocked down a peg — it took a weather emergency to do that, in particular, the tornadoes that struck in parts of the south.
In general, cross-media assignment desks seemed to be on the same page during the week, producing only eight stories that were on an individual medium top ten list but not on the total media list.
| Story | Overall | Newspr | Online | NetTV | CATV | Radio |
| 2008 campaign | 55% | 45% | 34% | 53% | 74% | 65% |
| Southern tornadoes | 7% | 4% | 11% | 12% | 7% | 3% |
| US economy | 5% | 10% | 5% | 2% | 2% | 5% |
| Super Bowl | 3% | 5% | 6% | 3% | 1% | 5% |
| Domestic terrorism | 2% | 3% | 5% | 2% | 1% | x |
| Bush’s 2008 budget | 2% | 3% | 4% | x | x | 1% |
| MO shooting | 2% | x | 4% | 2% | 1% | 1% |
| Writers strike | 1% | 5% | x | x | x | 1% |
| Pakistan | 1% | 3% | 2% | x | x | x |
| Iraq homefront | 1% | 2% | x | 1% | 1% | x |
| Microsoft bid/Yahoo | x | 2% | x | x | x | x |
| Iraq events | x | x | 3% | 1% | x | 1% |
| Afghanistan | x | x | 2% | x | x | x |
| Natalie Holloway | x | x | x | 2% | 1% | x |
| Midwest snow | x | x | x | 1% | 1% | x |
| Immigration | x | x | x | x | 1% | x |
| GA refinery blast | x | x | x | x | x | 1% |
| Baseball steroids | x | x | x | x | x | <1% |
Source: Project for Excellence in Journalism
