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The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash., David Zeeck column(News Tribune, The (Tacoma, WA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Feb. 18--The Project for Excellence in Journalism has an interesting new tool for examining how the press does its job. It's called the PEJ News Coverage Index and it's available on the Web. It allows the public to see how much space or time the various media -- in the aggregate or individually -- give to various topics. Let's take a recent week, Feb. 4-9 (the index rates news on a Sunday through Friday schedule), and see what it shows. It was an interesting week, with top stories including Iraq war news, the debate on the troop surge and the role of Iraqi troops, 2008 presidential politics and two sensational stories -- the death of Anna Nicole Smith and attempted-murder charges filed against a NASA astronaut. For the media as a whole, the stories were ranked this way (top to bottom): Iraq policy, events in Iraq, Anna Nicole Smith, the 2008 campaign and the astronaut scandal. But Smith's death occurred in the middle of the week, so only two days of coverage were included. What's interesting is how the various media played top stories. --Newspapers played them in this order (top to bottom): Events in Iraq, the 2008 campaign, Iraq policy, President Bush's budget and the Super Bowl. --Network TV played these stories: Iraq policy, events in Iraq, severe weather, the astronaut scandal and Smith's death. --Online news sites (CNN, Yahoo News, MSNBC, Google News and AOL News) had this lineup: Events in Iraq, Iraq policy, the astronaut scandal, the Super Bowl and Smith's death. --Cable TV: Smith, Iraq policy, the 2008 campaign, the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby trial and the astronaut scandal. --Radio had Iraq policy, the 2008 campaign, the astronaut scandal, Smith's death and the Super Bowl. The index is produced by PEJ staff and the analysis is written by Mark Jurkowitz, formerly the media critic for The Boston Globe and The (Boston) Phoenix newspapers. For this week the analysis noted how cable TV moved the Smith story straight to the top. The analysis also noted: "A look at the coverage also suggests that some elite mainstream media outlets were more comfortable giving major play to the astronaut story than to Smith's soap opera. Unlike a number of papers, The New York Times did not yield space on page 1 for Smith's death. And though it was covered on all three major networks, the story was positioned well down in the evening newscasts. (The astronaut's) arrest, conversely, was the first story on the CBS newscast and the second story on NBC's on February 6. It also made PBS's 'NewsHour.'" You can see all this, updated each week, at the PEJ Web site, www.journalism.org. Click on "news index." You can also have the news index e-mailed to you each week -- there's a link on the news index Web site to set that up. PHOTO STAFF WINS AWARD: The News Tribune's photo staff was named the top staff of newspaper photographers for 2006 in the region covering Washington, Oregon and Alaska by the National Press Photographers Association. The association ranks staffs by cumulative points won in monthly photo contests by individual photographers. Those contests -- with categories for spot news, general news, sports, features (both single shots and multiple-picture entries), and photo illustration -- are judged by photographers in other regions. "It's a great honor to be the top staff in our region," said Jeremy Harrison, our photo editor. "We think the award shows that we are doing a good job of documenting our community and life in the South Sound in exciting and dynamic ways, as judged by our peers." Photographer Drew Perine was our top point recipient for the year. Other staff photographers: Russ Carmack, Bruce Kellman, Peter Haley, Janet Jensen, Dean J. Koepfler, and Lui Kit Wong. Casey Madison and Louie Balukoff are picture editors. Dave Zeeck: 253-597-8434 [email protected] Blog: blogs.thenewstribune.com/editors To see more of The News Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.TheNewsTribune.com. Copyright (c) 2007, The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |