According to research conducted by Pew Research Center (Link to Pew Research Center Website), both the quantity and quality of media coverage regarding the Iraq War and the 2008 presidential election are not aligned with what the American public is seeking.
The Pew Research Center completes its Top Story Index (Link to Top Story Index) on a weekly basis to “compare and contrast – on an ongoing basis — the news agenda of the media with the news agenda of the public.” In its most recent comparison (for the week of June 11), the Pew Research Center found that while 33% of Americans followed the Iraq War closely, only 7% of the overall news coverage was devoted to this issue.
Because of differences in time periods measured, as well as differences in what is actually measured (percentage of media coverage versus percentage of people seeking media coverage) the site cautions that “while the two gauges are roughly comparable, they are not strictly equivalent.” However, the overall media coverage of immigration and the Palestinian conflict exceeded that of the Iraq War during this period, even though the American interest in the Iraq War almost double that of any other story.
The American public also sought increased information on the 2008 presidential election, with 10% of Americans saying that this was the main story that they were following and 7% of media coverage actually given to the 2008 elections. A June Pew Research Center study shows that even when the media covers the presidential elections, Americans are somewhat dissatisfied with the coverage provided (Link to Political Divide in Views of Campaign Coverage). The report, titled “Political Divide in Views of Campaign Coverage,” states that:
– 76% of Americans are seeking more information on candidates’ positions
– 57% of Americans are seeking more information regarding the presidential debates
– 54% of Americans are seeking more information regarding the candidates’ backgrounds
– 54% of Americans are seeking more information regarding “candidates who are not frontrunners”
A look at the previous month’s Google News results reflects the disconnect between current media coverage and the information that Americans are seeking. In the previous month, 20,572 stories about Paris Hilton were sent to Google News. Of the presidential candidates, only Hillary Clinton had more stories written about her than Ms. Hilton, with Ms. Clinton’s name appearing in 22,372 stories. Over the same period, Barack Obama’s name appeared in 17,764 stories, Rudy Giuliani’s name appeared in 12,789 stories, John McCain’s name appeared in 12,576 stories, and Mitt Romney’s name appeared in 12,458 stories. The combined number of stories about the remaining declared Republican candidates totaled less than the 20,000+ stories about Ms. Hilton. Ron Paul leads the rest of the Republican contenders with over 5,550 stories containing his name, Mike Huckabee’s name appeared in 3,261 stories, and Sam Brownback, Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, Tommy Thompson, and Jim Gilmore each had less than 3,000 stories containing their name in the previous month.
Sources:
www.pewresearch.org
pewresearch.org/databank/newsindex/
people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=333
