Talkers: Campaign good, economy bad

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The Project for Excellence in Journalism has finally put out another Talkers index, giving us a chance to compare the interests of gabmeisters as compared to their journalistic brethren. During the week of 3/13/08-4/6/08, they were pretty much true to the form we noted during 2007: They took the top story and amplified it. In this case, it was the 2008 election campaign, which they elevated from a journalistic 32% share all the way up to 72% of available time and space. It was not the same story for the journalistic #2, which garnered 9% of the newshole. Talkers allocated a scant 1% of their attention to the topic, and it came in #10 on PEJ’s Talk Chart, behind five other topics getting a fractionally higher 1% as well. Only three subjects other than the campaign were measured with a curly number: the immigration debate picked up 3% for a sole hold on 2nd place, while the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s murder and the domestic terrorism saga picked up 2% apiece.