Media Analysis: How the Press Covered the Tragedy in Tucson

[struggle4progress]

by Mark Jurkowitz, Associate Director, Project for Excellence in Journalism
January 19, 2011

... From Jan.10-16, the rampage that killed six and badly wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords accounted for 57% of the news coverage studied by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism ...

The single biggest shooting-related topic involved a discussion of the tenor of political discourse in America, including its role as a potential catalyst for the tragedy. That theme proved to be the biggest component of the coverage both in mainstream and social media alike ...

Nowhere in the mainstream media did that debate echo more loudly than on the ideological talk shows on radio and cable news. On radio, which includes commercial talk hosts, headlines and NPR, it filled 57% of the airtime devoted to the shooting. On cable, which includes prime-time and some daytime programming, it filled 32% ...

The topic of political discourse was less prominent elsewhere in the media. It accounted for 21% of the online news studied concerning the shooting. And it filled 18% of the front-page newspaper coverage devoted to the shooting and 18% in network morning and evening news on the story ...

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1863/media-analysis-giffords-shooting-political-rhetoric

[tularetom]

1. The initial coverage of the shooting was appallingly poor

I first read of the incident here on DU and hollered for my wife to turn on the TV news. It happened to be CNN and it was the worst coverage of a major news story I've ever seen in my life. The reporter couldn't pronounce Giffords' name and twice they broke into the on site reporting to announce that she had died from her wounds. At one point there was a report that 18 people had been killed.

It was just shoddy work, the kind we're accustomed to see on local news coverage when they report on getting a dog out of a drain or the completion of a new road project.