VLVL2 re Zoyd's work & the Tube

[pynchonoid]

JULY 23, 2003
Media Coverage of Government Is Declining 
More Focus on Celebrity, Crime 
By Will Lester, Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON -- (AP) Except for a brief increase after
the Sept. 11 attacks, the amount of media coverage of
the federal government has declined significantly over
the last 20 years, a new survey found.

The increased coverage after the terrorist attacks
focused mostly on the White House, said the survey
released Wednesday by the Council for Excellence in
Government.

The group surveyed news coverage in the first year of
the Reagan administration, the first year of the
Clinton administration and the first year of the
current Bush administration -- looking at 30,000
stories from both the national network news and the
front pages of The New York Times, The Washington
Post, and four regional newspapers -- the Austin
(Texas) American-Statesman, The Des Moines (Iowa)
Register, the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, and the
St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.

"Television and newspapers are the modern civics
teachers for most of us," said Patricia McGinnis,
president and chief executive of the Council,
explaining the need for such periodic surveys.

The survey found the number of stories about the
federal government dropped by 31% on TV news over the
length of the study, 12% in the national newspapers,
and 39% in the four regional newspapers.

Coverage of government activity sharply increased
after Sept. 11, 2001, though that subsided several
months later, according to other media studies.

"The fact that the press doesn't cover government as
much as it used to reflects a bigger change, that a
lot of our media now is focused on entertainment,
celebrity, and soap opera crime," said Tom Rosenstiel,
director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
"It's hard to imagine the president doing anything
that can compete with Kobe Bryant."

He was referring to the Los Angeles Lakers star
charged with sexually assaulting a woman in Colorado.

Other findings in the survey:

* The average amount of time dedicated to news stories
in nightly network news shows has decreased steadily
over the last 20 years -- from just over 22 minutes in
1981 to just over 18 minutes in 2001.

* The attacks on Sept. 11 accounted for four times as
many network news stories as any other topic in 2001.

Between the terrorist attacks, the war in Afghanistan,
and the anthrax mailings, there was little room left
for any other stories to get much attention during the
last part of 2001. Only taxes and health care broke up
the focus on terrorism during the rest of 2001, the
study found.

"Given 9-11, the dramatic nature of how he got elected
and the economy, one would expect news about President
Bush to have spiked up a lot in the first year," said
Rosenstiel. "He was like an invisible president before
9-11. That helped Bush because he was changing the
political agenda and doing so below the radar." 

Source: Editor & Publisher Online



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