no such thing as bad ink

A funny thing happened while the Republicans were setting up the so-called elite media as enemy number one: The McCain-Palin ticket took complete control of the news agenda. According to The Project for Excellence in Journalism Coverage Index for last week, Sarah Palin dominated campaign coverage, even earning more press than her running mate. Her selection itself and her acceptance speech garnered the most coverage at 28 percent. Family issues came in at 10 percent, while stories about her public record scored 6 percent. Whether the coverage was positive or negative, it had one desired effect for the McCain camp: it knocked Obama off page one.

According to the report:

"Sarah Palin, the first woman on a Republican ticket, was the focus of feverish attention as the media tried to find out more about her, convey her record and biography, and calculate her impact on the race. For the week of Sept. 1-7, Palin was a significant or dominant factor in 60% of the campaign stories, according to the Campaign Coverage Index from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. McCain was fairly close behind, a significant or dominant factor in 52% of the stories.

Put another way, Palin enjoyed more coverage as a VP candidate during the GOP convention than Obama did a week earlier when he became the first person of color to accept the nomination for president of a major party. With the other ticket making most of the news, Obama was a focus in 22% of the stories last week, by far his lowest week of coverage in the general election season. His running mate Joe Biden registered at 2%."