The push to pass health care reform in the US House of Representatives was by far the dominant story in the news during the week of 3/15-21/10, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism. In fact, it’s the first time in awhile that one issue dominated like this – the story took 37% of all available time and space. No other made it into double-digits.
Only two media had a second double digit story on the individual charts, newspaper and radio, and in both cases the story was the economic crisis. It was #2 overall with 8%, claimed 13% of newspaper coverage and grabbed 10% of radio’s news time.
Online services paid the least amount of attention to health care, giving it 22% of its attention. Radio lavished 52% of its time, which was still not enough to match cable’s 57% health care tunnel vision.
| Story | Overall | Newspaper | Online | NetTV | CATV | Radio |
| Health care debate | 37% | 28% | 22% | 30% | 57% | 52% |
| Economic crisis | 8% | 13% | 7% | 7% | 6% | 10% |
| Toyota recall | 4% | x | 9% | 5% | x | 2% |
| Israeli-Palestinian conflict | 4% | x | 6% | 4% | 2% | 5% |
| Afghanistan | 3% | 5% | 6% | x | 1% | 3% |
| Education system | 3% | 6% | 2% | x | 4% | x |
| Obama administration | 2% | 7% | x | x | x | 1% |
| Mexican drug war | 2% | 2% | x | 4% | 2% | x |
| China | 2% | 2% | 5% | x | x | x |
| ND floods | 2% | x | 2% | x | 1% | 2% |
| Cyberspace issues | x | 3% | x | x | x | x |
| Domestic terrorism | x | 3% | x | x | x | x |
| Taxes | x | 2% | x | x | x | x |
| NCAA basketball | x | x | 3% | 3% | x | x |
| Thailand protests | x | x | 2% | x | x | x |
| Mid-Atlantic storms/floods | x | x | x | 5% | x | x |
| Red River flood | x | x | x | 5% | x | x |
| Tiger Woods | x | x | x | 3% | x | x |
| Catholic priest abuse scandal | x | x | x | 3% | x | x |
| John Edwards | x | x | x | x | 2% | x |
| War on Terror | x | x | x | x | 1% | x |
| Haiti earthquake | x | x | x | x | 1% | 3% |
| Republic of Georgia | x | x | x | x | x | 1% |
| 2010 elections | x | x | x | x | x | 1% |
Source: Project for Excellence in Journalism
