Iraq still dominates news coverage
Wrangling over what to do next in Iraq was still the primary focus of the news media 1/28/07-2/2/07, and in a week with no one big attention-grabbing story, the Iraq policy debate had the top to itself as the lone double-digit topic. That said, however, and we note that there was remarkable unanimity in what stories to dwell on, with only 18 separate topics compared to 30 the week before. The early arrival of the 2008 presidential campaign almost edged into double-digit territory in the media overall, and did manage to nose into it on the cable and radio charts, but that was about it. Coverage of the Scooter Libby trial picked up some steam, and a trend toward having at least two weather stories continued. One of them is global warming, which has been joined up until now on the charts with various snowstorm reports. This time, tornadoes in Florida were the accompanying meteorological item. The biggest story to disappear was the State of the Union speech. One ironic note: the death of columnist Molly Ivins tied for third place on the radio chart with 5%, but appeared on none of the other top ten lists, including newspaper, the sector in which she spent her entire career.
Top ten lists
|
Story
|
Overall
|
Newspr
|
Online
|
NetTV
|
CATV
|
Radio
|
|
Iraq policy
|
13%
|
9%
|
10%
|
15%
|
20%
|
21%
|
|
2008 campaign
|
9%
|
7%
|
5%
|
9%
|
13%
|
11%
|
|
Iraq events
|
6%
|
4%
|
10%
|
9%
|
5%
|
3%
|
|
Iran
|
6%
|
5%
|
5%
|
5%
|
8%
|
4%
|
|
Global warming
|
5%
|
4%
|
9%
|
7%
|
x
|
5%
|
|
Libby trial
|
4%
|
4%
|
5%
|
x
|
4%
|
4%
|
|
Super Bowl
|
3%
|
6%
|
x
|
3%
|
3%
|
2%
|
|
Boston ad scare
|
3%
|
2%
|
6%
|
3%
|
2%
|
x
|
|
FL tornadoes
|
3%
|
x
|
x
|
4%
|
7%
|
x
|
|
Barbaro
|
2%
|
3%
|
x
|
4%
|
x
|
2%
|
|
New Congress
|
x
|
2%
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
|
Israel/Palestine
|
x
|
x
|
7%
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
|
Brit. terror raids
|
x
|
x
|
4%
|
3%
|
x
|
x
|
|
Palestinian factions
|
x
|
x
|
3%
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
|
Immigration
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
2%
|
x
|
|
US economy stats
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
2%
|
x
|
|
Molly Ivins obit
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
5%
|
|
SF mayor affair
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
2%
|
|
Source: Project for Excellence in Journalism
|
|
|
|
