Survey: Pope's Visit Got A Big Chunk of U.S. Media's Attention
Submitted by jgehring on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 3:08pm.
Story summary:
The news media gave Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States in April more coverage that week than any topic except the 2008 election campaign, according to an analysis of reporting by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The analysis released May 6 found that coverage of the pope's April 15-20 visit took up 16 percent of the week's "news hole." The presidential campaign accounted for 31 percent of coverage; the law enforcement raid on a polygamist church's compound in Texas received 8 percent of the coverage; the economy got 5 percent and the Iraq War received 3 percent.
Survey: Pope's Visit Got A Big Chunk of U.S. Media's Attention
Catholic News Service
5-9-08
More than half of the papal coverage focused on two main angles of the pope's visit: his meeting with victims of sexual abuse by priests and his comments on the subject in various places, which totaled 37 percent of the reporting, and his relationship with American Catholics, which accounted for 17 percent of stories, the survey showed. Less than 20 percent of the stories accounted for what the survey described as "straightforward coverage of events."
Other aspects of the pope's visit described by the survey as "largely ignored" included Pope Benedict's visit with leaders of other religious faiths, which got about 1 percent of the news hole, and his comments about U.S. politics and his visit to the White House, which got a total of 3 percent of the coverage.