The good news: pullback on campaign coverage

But the bad news? That’s because the economy is tanking. The troubles with the housing bubble and subprimes, the weakening dollar and the canaries all around singing out "recession" managed to get a double-digit piece of the collective newshole for the week of 1/14/08-1/20/08, knocking campaign coverage from 49% the previous week to a still-healthy 39%. All five media measured by the Project for Excellence in Journalism placed these stores one and two. However, in the cable world, it was still mainly wall-to-wall elections, with a campaign-to-economy margin of 65%-7%. Radio was on a subdued version of the same track, with a 42%-7% margin. Speaking of margins, the apparently marginalized President George W. Bush finished up his trip to the Mideast, an event that tied for third on the overall chart with a minuscule (for third place) 2% of available time and space. An aspect of a news week with dominant stories is a wide variety of niche stories not in the overall top ten but on one or more individual top ten lists. This week there were 18 such topics. And thanks, cable. We almost got through the day without thinking about either Britney Spears or OJ Simpson — but since you guys think this kind of tabloid fodder is "major top 10 news," our pristine record has now been sullied.