By: Joe Strupp Despite a week that included some U.S. troops withdrawing from Iraq and Sarah Palin's surprise resignation, Michael Jackson's death and its aftermath still led news coverage, according to the latest Project for Excellence in Journalism's News Coverage Index.
The weekly PEJ survey, which monitors news stories across broadcast, cable, and print, found that between June 29 and July 5, some 17% of "newshole" was devoted to Jackson' s death and funeral plans.
"And it has largely been a television story, accounting for 30% of the airtime studied on network news and 28% on cable news last week," the survey said. "In the network news universe, the morning shows devoted 56% of their airtime to Jackson, compared with 20% in the evening."
The second-largest story was the ongoing economic crisis, at 10% of coverage, followed by Iraq, at 6%, and the war in Afghanistan accounting for 5% of news time.
Other findings in the report:
"Coverage in the week of June 29-July 5 saw two prominent stories nearly vanish from the news agenda. After topping headlines for several weeks, the situation in Iran fell to 4% last week, down from 19% the previous week. Similarly, attention to South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's infidelity and political future dropped to 2% from 11% the week before."
"Sarah Palin's surprising July 3 resignation announcement came too late in the week to make the top-five story list in PEJ's News Coverage Index. However, it did generate the most coverage of any story (13%) in the period from July 3-5.
"For the second week in a row, Michael Jackson made more news than President Obama. He registered as a lead newsmaker in 14% of the week's stories-more than three times that of Obama (4%). The third biggest newsmaker of the week was Bernard Madoff (4%), who was sentenced to 150 years in prison. Sarah Palin (3%) and Minnesota Senator Al Franken (2%) followed."
The entire report can be found at the PEJ Web site,
here.
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