Another week of balanced coverage

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There’s definitely a lot of important activity going on, both in the US and abroad. But no one issue is news-dominant, according to the latest Project for Excellence in Journalism report for the week of 9/28/09-10/4/09.


Health care edged out Iran as the #1 story overall, but among the five media studied, three had an alternate #1. The economy, Iran and the 2016 Olympics were the other hot topics.

Radio and cable both stayed with health care, giving it 20% and 21% of the newshole respectively, which is what put the story on top among all five media. Network television had it as a top 10 story, but gave it only 4% of available news time.

Two scandals managed to get into the top ten, with Roman Polanski outpolling David Letterman 4% to 2%.

Here are complete results:

Story Overall Newspaper Online NetTV CATV Radio
Health care debate 11% 9% 6% 4% 20% 21%
Iran 10% 10% 13% 10% 11% 4%
Economic crisis 9% 12% 11% 5% 3% 12%
2016 Olympics 7% x 6% 14% 9% 9%
Afghanistan 6% 3% 5% 4% 9% 8%
Samoan earthquake/tsunami 4% x 7% 10% 2% x
Indonesian earthquake 4% x 10% 5% x x
Roman Polanski arrest 4% 3% 4% 7% 3% 2%
Swine flu 3% 4% x 6% x x
David Letterman 3% x 3% 4% 4% 3%
Ardi fossil discovery x 4% x x x x
VA gubernatorial election x 3% x x x x
G-20 summit x 3% x x x x
Texting and driving x 3% x x x x
Typhoons in Far East x x 3% x x x
ACORN controversy x x x x 4% x
Obama administration x x x x 3% 4%
Gun control x x x x x 3%
Mexican drug war x x x x x 2%

Source: Project for Excellence in Journalism