Cable talkers pour the OJ

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The week of 9/16-21/07 marked a return of the tabloid to news coverage, with OJ Simpson’s Las Vegas break-in getting the top spot in the Project for Excellence in Journalism poll. Cable news organizations were largely responsible for that showing with 13% of the newshole (a relatively modest showing for the top story), and according to PEJ, their brethren in the cable talk category were primarily responsible for landing him on top of the Talk index with 21% of available time. PEJ said radio hosts were much less interested in the topic. In fact, whereas monitored cable talkers gave OJ 140 minutes, radio talkers gave him only eight, putting their own focus on the 2008 campaign, which was second on the talk chart with 18%. Talkers picked up on three topics that failed to make the news top-ten list: the saga of the tasered Florida student (6%), Alan Greenspan’s new book (4%) and Dan Rather’s lawsuit against CBS/Viacom (3%).