Dow Jones Insight: Election Pulse

Economy Gains Even More Attention Around President-Elect Obama, While ‘15 Minutes’ Are Over for ‘Joe’

2008-11-21T01:03:00.003-05:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

The media conversation around Barack Obama not surprisingly changed in the week following Election Day. During the period of November 5 to 11, the coverage of “taxes” took a nosedive in the mainstream media, going from approximately 16,000 mentions for Obama in the week before Election Day to 6,000 the week after. Other issues that lost traction were abortion and immigration – each losing about one-third of their volume in a week.

But the economy and the financial bailout as well as the environment were being talked about even more than before the election.

International issues gaining coverage in the context of the president-elect included Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Israel, while Iraq showed no change from the week before Election Day.

As expected, Obama’s mainstream media coverage on the whole increased dramatically in the week following Election Day. For all the coverage he and McCain received in the weeks and months leading up to the presidential election, the week after the election proved to be even more focused on the new president. Media mentions of Obama peaked during the week of November 5 to 11 (185,000 mentions of Obama coming from Dow Jones Insight’s 20,000 tracked publications and Web sites.) In fact, that week’s tally was double that of the highest previous week (August 25 to 31, when he received 94,000 mentions). On average, the post-election-week mentions of Obama were about four times the average of all weeks since Super Tuesday.

For obvious reasons, Obama received more than double the mainstream media mentions of McCain in the week of November 5 to 11 (185,000 to 78,000). And while President Bush had lost the already-small “presidential mindshare” in the two weeks before the election – dropping from an early autumn average of 6,800 mentions a week to 3,000 in the last two weeks of October – he gained it back in the week after the election, rising to 6,900 mentions.

Election Day perhaps marked the beginning of the end of “Joe the Plumber’s” 15 minutes of fame. Coverage of this symbol of what McCain said was wrong with Obama’s tax plan fell from a high of about 9,988 mentions in the week of October 15 to 21, when Joe first came on the scene, to 680 during the post-Election Day week of November 5 to 11.

It should be noted, however, that “hope” and “change,” two of Obama’s calling cards, remain on an upward path, with their post-election numbers higher than the highs before November 4. “Change” alone went from 10,000 mentions two weeks before the election to 25,000 in the week after the election.

In the weeks and months leading up to Election Day much of the coverage was about the economy in one way or another. In our final pre Election Day analysis, 46% of all issues-related coverage of the candidates involved the economy, with coverage of other domestic issues (16%), candidate-specific issues (24%) and the wars (13%) running far behind.

But looking at Obama coverage only in the week before and the week after the election, the percentages and rankings shift in small but telling ways. Talk of the economic crisis and the non-economic domestic issues, when taken as a group, slipped slightly from week to week while foreign policy-related issues – topics on which Obama had both supporters and vociferous critics – jumped and topics related to Obama as a candidate (such as faith and fundraising) fell.

Specifically, in the week before the election, issues surrounding the economic crisis represented 43% of the total Obama issues-related coverage, but that fell to 42% in the week following. Domestic issues, meanwhile, represented 22% of the total before the election and a slightly lower 21% after, despite a surge in coverage of Obama in conjunction with same-sex marriage as the media discussed whether Obama’s high turnout in California had impacted the results of that state’s public question on same-sex marriage. The surge in that issue nearly offset large declines in Obama-related coverage on health care, abortion, immigration and Social Security.

War and foreign-policy issues taken as a group rose from 15% of the total before the election to 19% after the election, largely reflecting increased talk of Obama in conjunction with Afghanistan and Iraq. Candidate-specific issues fell from 20% before Nov. 4 to 18% after, as talk of fundraising in particular fell off dramatically.

Methodology: This analysis looks at 25 selected issues that occurred within 50 words of Barack Obama’s name during the periods of October 29 to November 4 and November 5 to November 11. Green highlight indicates those that moved significantly higher in rank from week 1 to week 2; red highlights those that fell significantly over the same period. The data come from approximately 20,000 English-language mainstream media print and Web sources, more than 60,000 English-language message boards and 2 million blogs.

Even in Defeat, Palin Continues to Attract More Attention than Biden

2008-11-21T00:27:00.003-05:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

Media coverage of Sarah Palin has fallen with her ticket’s loss on Election Day but hasn't disappeared. In fact, in the week following the election, she still received more coverage than the victorious Biden, who has been largely in the background since his announcement as vice presidential nominee.

November 5, the day after the election, was Biden’s best media day in terms of volume of coverage since the vice-presidential debate. But, perhaps most interestingly, his Election Day tally of approximately 4,000 mainstream media mentions still fell short of Palin’s 6,000 mentions that day. In social media, the gap was even wider, running at nearly 2 ½ to 1 in favor of Palin (7,059 to 3,177) in the 2 million blogs and message boards being studied. The average gap before Election Day was about 4 to 1. In the week after Election Day it was 3 ½ to 1.

Post election, the governor of Alaska maintained her news coverage as a result of a handful of national television interviews, a speech to the Republican Governors Association, talk about her plans for the 2012 election and discussion of a book deal. Pundits, meanwhile, discussed whether her presence as a polarizing figure cost McCain the election.

The vice president-elect, meanwhile, got a modicum of attention from his meeting with outgoing Vice President Cheney and discussion about his anticipated role in the new administration.

Methodology: The data come from approximately 20,000 English-language mainstream media print and Web sources, more than 60,000 English-language message boards and 2 million blogs.

Obama Extends or Holds Onto ‘Headline’ Leads in Several Battlegrounds States – Except Pennsylvania

2008-10-28T13:16:00.003-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

If John McCain is hoping that the national polls are overstating his opponent’s lead and that he’ll get the electoral math to tip his way on the only day that matters, he won’t find too much solace in local press coverage in a handful of battleground states. Because here, as with almost every other way the media coverage is sliced, Barack Obama was ahead in the media race during the past week.

In the period of October 19 to 25 versus the previous week, the Democrat increased his lead in total number of headline mentions in four battleground states – Nevada (by 21 percentage points, on the heels of visits by him and his wife), North Carolina (by 10 points), Florida (4 points) and Missouri (3 points). He lost ground, though, in Colorado (where his lead shrunk by 6 percentage points, on a strong push by McCain there), Ohio (2 points) and Pennsylvania (2 points).

And it is Pennsylvania – where Obama has a comfortable lead in public polls, but where the McCain camp insists its private polls put the state at a dead heat – which appears the closest in the headline race. The week of October 19 to 25 showed a 51%-49% split barely leaning Obama’s way. That is a 2-percentage-point drop there for Obama.

And what are those reporters writing about in Pennsylvania? Like everywhere else, it’s kitchen-table issues, with the economy and taxes in the top two slots. As to how Pennsylvania’s coverage differs, it’s not dramatic, but the data show slight variation. The issue of “experience” shows up in the top 10, which was not the case in the other battleground states when taken as a group.

The everyman message of “Joe the plumber” still resonates in Pennsylvania as in the other battlegrounds, getting mentioned more than the issues of jobs, health care and the financial bailout. International issues, including both wars, did not make the top 10.

Methodology: Sources include selected newspapers, newspaper Web sites and broadcast outlets in each state. The past two weeks were compared and the two periods saw similar number of articles written in each state.

Bush Still Gets Some Press in this Election Frenzy

2008-10-28T13:15:00.001-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

The curse of the lame duck president – one who will be losing his power shortly – is well known. But how does that end-point impact the president’s coverage in the media?

The loss of attention for President Bush is starker in the social media landscape than in the traditional media. Dow Jones Insight found that Bush had an 11% share of voice, compared to Obama’s 49% and McCain’s 40%, when counting headline mentions from September 27 to October 26 in approximately 20,000 mainstream news publications and media Web sites. But in blogs, Bush hardly ever made it into the headlines, getting just 2% of all headline mentions of the three. Perhaps not a surprise, but even those sparse mentions are dismal, including such posts as “Sarah Palin Blames George Bush for Problems facing the Republican Campaign” and “Is Palin the new Bush?”

When the president has gotten mentioned in the mainstream media of late, it’s generally been in reference to the economy or the financial sector bailout. For the economy, from September 27 to October 26, Bush received a headline mention a bit less than one-third as often as either McCain or Obama, with 11,762 Bush mentions compared to 31,116 for McCain and 31,106 for Obama. For the bailout, the president saw much more comparable volumes, netting 11,310 headline mentions to McCain’s 15,138 and Obama’s 14,300. But for virtually all other issues, he wasn’t the focus at all.

Methodology: The data come from approximately 20,000 English-language mainstream media print and Web sources, more than 60,000 English-language message boards and 2 million blogs.

No ‘Surprise’ in October as Obama Rolls Along

2008-10-28T13:14:00.001-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

The last full month of the 2008 presidential election is nearly over and we have not had the "October surprise" many political analysts have mentioned in hushed tones. Such a tail-wag-dog event, perhaps orchestrated by the White House, would be aimed at giving the Republican nominee a needed boost in the polls.

Instead, the more mundane has been playing out through October, at least as measured by mentions in the mainstream media and the blogosphere.

McCain had a strong September in the media, passing Obama for the first time during the general campaign. However, it was short-lived, with Obama re-emerging as the media darling early in October and expanding his lead every week since.

Meanwhile, Palin, who was greatly responsible for McCain’s rise in media coverage in early September, continues to do much better than Biden – topping him by more than 2 to 1 on most days – but her coverage has remained below that of McCain’s in the weeks following the vice presidential debate on October 2.

Methodology: The data come from approximately 20,000 English-language mainstream media print and Web sources, more than 60,000 English-language message boards and 2 million blogs.

Issues Coverage Hits a Plateau but Obama’s Share of it Does Not

2008-10-28T13:13:00.002-04:00

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

With a week to go until Election Day, the volume of mainstream and social media coverage of the two candidates on key election issues has leveled off considerably from the sharp increases we’d seen in our past several analyses, but Barack Obama again widened his lead in terms of the number of issues on which he received higher coverage than John McCain.

In our latest analysis, covering the period September 26 through October 26, Obama achieved an overall coverage advantage on 14 of the 26 issues tracked, while McCain led on just one issue and 11 were categorized as ties, or as having a difference of fewer than six percentage points between the two candidates, according to analysis of 20,000 mainstream media and 2 million social media sources by Dow Jones Insight. Obama’s 14 issues were one more than the 13 he “owned” in our previous analysis covering the 30-day period from September 19 through October 19. McCain’s total represented a decline of three issues from the four on which he had led last time around. Worse yet, two snapshots ago McCain led on nine and a month ago he led on 19, so the downward trend has been quite pronounced; since we created the Issues Tracker in July, McCain had never led on fewer than three issues, even when Obama was on his swing through the Middle East and Europe. The 11 ties in the latest analysis were two more than the previous period’s nine.

Of the individual issues that changed hands, Obama added taxes and immigration to his side of the ledger, both of which had previously been too close to call, while Israel moved from the Obama side to a tie, resulting in the net gain of one issue for the Democrat. McCain led on just North Korea this time, giving up his former coverage advantages on the economy, the housing slump and Social Security, all three of which are now ties.

In terms of total issues-related volume, for the period September 26 through October 26 there were 1,666,011 mentions of the candidates in proximity to one or more of the 26 issues in all tracked sources. That represented an increase of 3.5% over the 1,609,083 issues-related mentions in the previous rolling 30-day period. The volume of issues-oriented coverage has leveled off after significant rises in several of our previous analyses, and the movement of issues up and down in the rankings was also minimal. The only move of more than one spot was bailout, which fell from second place to fourth, not so much because the economic crisis is being discussed less but because it has taken on new forms beyond the original bailout bill voted down by, and then passed by, Congress. But even with the small changes in total volume and relative importance of the issues, the Obama campaign clearly managed to steer the focus further from McCain and toward its candidate.

When we group the issues by type, we again see modest changes. Discussion of the various issues related to the economic crisis made up 46% of the total this time around, down a point from 47% in our last analysis, while the percentage of talk regarding non-economic domestic issues, like education and same-sex marriage, also dipped a bit, to 16% from 17%. On the rise, if only slightly, was the group of candidate-specific issues (such as faith and race), which accounted for 24% of the discussion, up from 23%, while issues related to the wars and the Middle East stayed level at 13% of the total.

Methodology: This analysis looks at 26 selected issues that occurred within 50 words of at least one of the candidates’ names during the period of September 26 to October 26, 2008. To demonstrate change in “ownership” of issues, these data were compared with the period of September 19 to October 19. We opted to take a 30-day snapshot approximately every two weeks to flatten out any spikes in data that could be attributed to a single-day anomaly in the data. The data come from approximately 20,000 English-language mainstream media print and Web sources, more than 60,000 English-language message boards and 2 million blogs.

Obama Coverage Trending Upward as McCain’s Remains Flat

2008-10-23T12:02:00.002-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

The trend lines of daily headline coverage of the two candidates for September 1 through October 20 show a very clear story – McCain’s gains in September have disappeared and as each day progresses through October Obama widens the gap.

Headline mentions, as we’ve written before, are a telling indicator of what the media and bloggers think the main focus of the events of the day should be.

Overlaying a linear trend line atop these daily counts, as shown here, shows more clearly the direction the volume counts are moving.

The three most recent spikes in coverage, just following September 26, October 7 and October 15, are a result of more coverage in the days after the three presidential debates. After the first debate, McCain picked up many more headline mentions than Obama. But after the other two debates, including the October 15 event, which many say was McCain’s strongest showing, more headlines were written about Obama than McCain. And in the days since, the gap has been growing.

Methodology: Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards.

For a Few Short Days It Was All About ‘Joe the Plumber’ in the Blogs

2008-10-23T12:00:00.003-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

We thought it would take a lot to kick “change” out of the No. 1 slot of the most used hot-button term this election. But we would not have predicted a plumber would seal the deal. The sudden rise of “Joe the Plumber,” the nation’s newly crowned everyman who challenged Obama at one of his rallies and who the McCain camp has raised to symbol status, burst on the scene after the third debate and topped “change” in mentions in the social media during the period October 13 to October 19.

In the same period, “Joe” climbed to No. 2 in the mainstream media.

In both the press and in social media, Joe saw a large burst and a noticeable decline in the days that followed the debate. Daily volumes of “Joe” are running at about 33% what they were on the day after the debate. So this is a drop, but Joe does still have legs.

Meanwhile Obama’s attempt to label McCain “erratic” didn’t quite take off in the social media space. It settles into the fifth slot this week, never making it to the lofty heights of the once mighty “elitism,” which is now at No. 9.

And while “electability” has slipped out of the top 10 in social media, its sister, “experience,” holds onto the forth slot this week. Experience may be two steps above “celebrity” but it’s no “hope,” which is at No. 3 this week.

Obama’s ‘Headline Lead’ Larger Than Average in Colorado, Ohio and Florida

2008-10-23T10:32:00.003-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

The national split of headline mentions in the most recent weekly analysis shows 54% of headline mentions for Obama and 46% for McCain. The breakdown in Red and Blue states is about the same, as it is in the Gray States when taken as a whole.

So this week we decided to focus not on the Gray States as whole but specifically on some that will likely matter most. Here we see some splits wider than the national split. In a few states, Obama’s lead is greater, and in a few it’s less. For example, Colorado, Missouri, Ohio and Florida all show Obama leads that are greater than his lead at the national level, while North Carolina and Nevada show closer races – gaps of about four percentage points.

Colorado has voted Republican three times in the past four, and now, with its influx of first-generation Hispanic voters, it becomes a state both sides think they can win. Closely watched Florida, where Obama is outspending McCain 4-1 of late according to CNN, has a 55%-45% breakdown in the most recent period. Perennial battleground Ohio and Missouri, with its surge in newly registered African American voters, are both at 57%-43% for Obama. And Nevada, with many newly registered Democrats, has Obama up a few points in the polls and a close 53%-48% split. North Carolina, also at 53%-48%, has been solidly Republican for much of the past several decades but is a dead heat in the polls.

While there is no consensus on exactly how to determine if a state is a “battleground,” one thing is generally agreed upon: the election will likely tip to the candidate who wins in most of these key states. Over the past several months, Dow Jones Insight has analyzed the nation along red, blue and gray lines, strictly defining a Red State as one that has gone for the GOP four elections in a row, a Blue State as one that’s gone Democratic four in a row and a Gray State as one that has split. Our analysis includes television and print news media based in those states.

During most weeks, Red and Blue have been at most only a few points apart. And the most recent week, October 13 to October 19, was no different. Obama led in the count of headline mentions in both Red States (53%-47%) and Blue States (54%-46%). Perhaps this shows the press is not being influenced by the voting record of its readership. Or perhaps it underscores the argument that the country is more purple than it is two crisp camps.

Blue States are defined as those that were carried by the Democrats in all four of the most recent presidential elections: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. Red States are defined as those that were carried by the GOP in all four of the most recent presidential elections: Alaska, Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.

The Issues-Coverage Pendulum Continues to Swing Back Toward Obama

2008-10-22T20:03:00.003-04:00

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

With recent polls showing a widening lead for Barack Obama with less than two weeks to go before Election Day, the Democratic candidate continues to generate more coverage in the press and social media on key election issues, a trend he began several weeks back after briefly ceding the lead to McCain in the post-Palin coverage storm.

In the most recent rolling-30-day period from September 19 through October 19, Obama achieved an overall coverage advantage on 13 issues, compared with the 10 he dominated in our previous analysis covering September 12 through October 12, according to analysis of 20,000 mainstream media and 2 million social media sources by Dow Jones Insight. Of those, Obama now has a commanding lead (one greater than 15 points) on seven, including the bailout, faith, terrorism, jobs, abortion, Israel and fuel prices.

John McCain had a leading share on just four issues in the latest analysis, down from nine last time around, and he did not have a commanding lead on any issue. This shift reflects, in part, the declining share of overall election media coverage for McCain. The number of issues in which the coverage advantage was too close to call, or those with a difference of less than six percentage points between the two candidates, totaled nine, compared with seven last time.

In our previous analysis, Obama had the lead on 10 issues. In the ensuing seven days, he’s added four and lost one, resulting in 13 total. The issues he added were: terrorism, jobs and Israel, which were all formerly ties, and fuel prices, which had been McCain’s. In our last analysis, McCain had the lead in nine issues. Over the next seven days, he’s added one and lost six, resulting in four total issues for the most recent period. He added North Korea, which had been too close to call, and lost health care, Iran, energy, environment, and stem cell research, all of which are now ties. Fuel prices, meanwhile, went from McCain to Obama.

For the period September 19 through October 19, there were a total of 1,609,083 mentions of the candidates in proximity to one or more of the 26 issues in all tracked sources. That represented an increase of 15% over the 1,395,917 issues-related mentions in the previous rolling 30-day period. While the volume of issues-related coverage was up significantly, there was little change in the relative coverage of the issues themselves, as no issue went up or down more than one spot in the rankings. What changed, obviously, was which candidate was the focus of that coverage.

Of the issues-oriented mentions, 47% were related to the economic crisis, the same ratio as in our last analysis, while 23% were related to the candidates themselves (fundraising, faith and race), up one percentage point from the previous analysis. Non-economic domestic issues (e.g., education) remained at 17% and issues related to the wars and the Middle East dropped one percentage point to 14%.

Methodology: This analysis looks at 26 selected issues that occurred within 50 words of at least one of the candidates’ names during the period of August 15 to September 15, 2008. To demonstrate change in “ownership” of issues, these data were compared with the period of August 1 to September 1. We opted to take a 30-day snapshot approximately every two weeks to flatten out any spikes in data that could be attributed to a single-day anomaly in the data. The data come from approximately 19,000 English-language mainstream media print and Web sources, more than 60,000 English-language message boards and 2 million blogs.

Coverage of the Economy Outpaces All Other Issues Since Super Tuesday

2008-10-14T13:21:00.004-04:00

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

Conventional wisdom of late has held that John McCain was performing best when foreign policy issues such as Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and terrorism were at the forefront of the presidential campaign, and that now that the economy and financial crisis are dominating the discussion, his weaknesses are causing him to fall behind in the polls.

While it is true that election coverage pertaining to the economy is currently at its peak and that McCain is now trailing Obama significantly in several national polls, analysis of coverage in 20,000 mainstream sources tracked by Dow Jones Insight reveals that the economy has, in fact, been the top election issue at almost every step of the way since Super Tuesday, falling behind other issues on only a handful of occasions. The related issue of taxes has also outpaced foreign policy issues much of the time. So attributing McCain’s recent slide to a shift in press coverage toward the economy may not be quite accurate, since the emphasis has been there all along.

For the eight months beginning on Super Tuesday, February 5, the economy and/or taxes drew the highest coverage in every week except in mid- to late-May, when McCain and Obama stepped up their dispute over whether or not to talk with Iran, and in late July when Obama made his trip to the Middle East.

In terms of volume, the economy drew 109,356 mentions in mainstream press sources for the entire eight-month period, compared with 100,943 combined mentions of the four tracked issues related to the Middle East that drew the most coverage – Iraq (23,677), Iran (20,044), Afghanistan (21,279) and terrorism (35,943). Meanwhile, taxes generated 67,387 total mentions in the tracked timeframe.

The issue of the economy alone exceeded the total combined mentions of the four Middle East issues in five of the eight months. When the economy is combined with taxes, the two issues exceeded the four foreign-policy topics in six of the eight months, with May and July again being the exceptions.

The week of July 14 saw the highest volume of Afghanistan coverage, with 5,518 mentions, while in the same week terrorism was mentioned 3,170 times. During the week of May 19, Iran was mentioned 1,461 times, compared to an unusually low 937 for the economy, and during the week of May 12, terrorism received 1,882 mentions while Iran was mentioned 1,466 times, both significantly outstripping the economy (1,049).

Methodology: Sources analyzed include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts. The nominees subject group includes McCain, Palin, Obama and Biden.

Newly Discovered Phrases Confirm Campaigns’ Shift Toward the Personal

2008-10-14T13:18:00.002-04:00

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

With McCain’s post-convention and post-Palin bounce in the polls essentially eliminated by the financial crisis, the McCain team has decided to focus instead on issues related to Obama’s background and character, and the Obama team has responded with some personal attacks of its own.

Over the past seven days, the majority of terms newly discovered by Dow Jones Insight as being used frequently in conjunction with McCain’s and Obama’s names involve former Weather Underground member William Ayers, and McCain’s and Palin’s various comments linking Ayers with Obama, as well as Obama’s effort to remind voters of McCain’s association with the savings and loan scandal of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Of the 10 most common terms discovered in proximity to Obama’s name in all tracked sources, four involve Ayers: “Ayers” was mentioned 5,075 times, “Bill Ayers” 4,215 times, “William Ayers” 3,157 times and “Weather” 1,752 times, for a total of 14,199 Ayers-related mentions. Other terms or phrases making the Obama list include “Kenya,” with 1,543 mentions, and “Muslim,” with 1,301, both reflecting attempts (by writers, if not necessarily by McCain) to portray Obama as less American than McCain as well as non-Christian, and “political career” (1,096), a term found in a very widely distributed Associated Press article about Obama fundraiser and real-estate developer Tony Rezko. Obama was also mentioned frequently with the term “Keating” (893), as his campaign fired back with some negative associations for McCain.

Newly discovered terms appearing in relation to McCain largely reflected coverage of his campaign’s efforts to tie Obama to Ayers as well as the Obama team’s subsequent efforts to remind voters of McCain’s history with the savings and loan crisis.

Of the 10 most common terms discovered in proximity to McCain’s name over the past seven days, three involve the Keating scandal – “Keating” (with 2,523 mentions), “Keating Five” (with 1,600) and “Charles Keating” (with 1,331) – while three involved Ayers – “Ayers” (with 1,813), “Bill Ayers” (with 1,656) and “William Ayers” (with 1,233).

Methodology: “Discovered” terms include commonly identified phrases not already tracked as subjects in the Dow Jones Insight presidential election platform. Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards.

Obama Wins Back Six Issues in Latest Rolling 30 Days, Edging McCain

2008-10-14T13:13:00.001-04:00

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

In our previous analysis covering the period September 8 through October 8, half of the 26 major issues tracked by Dow Jones Insight had become too close to call, and of the other half, McCain had outpaced Obama by 9 to 4 in terms of share of coverage on each issue. Still, we saw this as indicating that the coverage was moving to parity, with most topics being about half and half. This week brought a different kind of parity, however, with the two candidates more or less splitting ownership of the issues down the middle, leaving fewer issues with no clear coverage leader. On the whole, though, the results show the coverage pendulum swinging back toward Obama, where it had been for much of the campaign season prior to the Palin and convention bump in September.

For the 30-day period from September 12 through October 12, Obama received higher coverage on 10 issues to McCain’s 9. The number of issues that were “ties” fell to seven from 13. Obama was responsible for most of the shift, gaining the coverage lead in six categories (bailout, faith, abortion, immigration and same-sex marriage, all formerly too close to call, plus Nafta, which McCain had won last time around). McCain stayed at nine, losing Nafta but adding Iran, which was formerly a tie.

Only a few of the issues themselves saw significant increases in overall coverage, relative to the other issues (defined as moving up or down the list by more than one spot). Those included taxes, which advanced two spots, and Iran, which climbed three. Education and abortion each fell two places.

Coverage volume related to the issues has leveled off a bit since our last snapshot, after rising strongly in recent weeks. The candidates’ names occurred in conjunction with one or more of the 26 tracked issues 1,395,917 times in the past 30 days in the nearly 20,000 mainstream media and 2 million social media sources analyzed, up slightly from 1,394,277 in the previous 30-day period. Of those issues-related mentions, 47% were related to the economic crisis (up 3 percentage points from last time) and 22% to the candidates themselves (down 1 percentage point), while non-economic domestic issues fell one point to 17% and issues related to the wars and the Middle East stayed the same, at 14% (figures in the previous period don’t total 100% due to rounding).

Methodology: This analysis looks at 26 selected issues that occurred within 50 words of at least one of the candidates’ names during the period of September 12 to October 12, 2008. To demonstrate change in “ownership” of issues, these data were compared with the period of September 8 to October 8. We opted to take a 30-day snapshot approximately every two weeks to flatten out any spikes in data that could be attributed to a single-day anomaly in the data. The data come from approximately 20,000 English-language mainstream media print and Web sources, more than 60,000 English-language message boards and 2 million blogs.

McCain’s Hold on the ‘Issue-Lead’ Fades Quickly

2008-10-09T08:42:00.003-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

The early part of the post-primary race was all Obama. He dominated media coverage no matter how the data were sliced. Then McCain made a move in late summer, and for a few weeks in September McCain was commanding more attention across the social and mainstream media landscape on an issue-by-issue basis. But that lead proved tenuous, as this week’s analysis by Dow Jones Insight shows media coverage of half of the issues is now split evenly.

Last week McCain had turned the board nearly all red as the press and bloggers were mentioning his name in close proximity to the major issues more often than they were Obama’s. But this week we see a much grayer view. The top issues on which McCain is still getting more ink (and pixels) are the economy, health care, energy, the environment and the housing slump. And Obama is still holding onto fundraising (which is not an issue a candidate necessarily wants press on) and has taken back education. But other key issues – the financial bailout (a newly added issue for this analysis), taxes, terrorism, Iraq, Israel and immigration – are even.

As to which issue is the most discussed overall, there is little surprise that the economy is still on top this week and its sister issues (the bailout, taxes and jobs) are all in the top 10. For much of the campaign we lamented the volume of press given to what some might call the non-policy issues of the candidates’ races, the pastors they associate with, their faiths and how much money they’ve raised. It seems it took a major financial crisis to sharpen the focus.

In the most recent 30-day snapshot (the previous snapshot was sampled seven days ago) the issues that have gained ground are the financial bailout, jobs, Afghanistan and Iran, while those that fell the most in the rankings were abortion (which had jumped after Palin was announced) and the environment.

As the election nears, coverage volume continues to rise. One of the candidate’s names occurred along with one or more of the 26 tracked issues 1.4 million times in the past 30 days in the nearly 20,000 mainstream media and 2 million social media sources analyzed. Of that, a full 44% were related to the economic state of affairs the nation finds itself in. As for the rest, 23% were related to the candidates directly (fundraising, faith and race), 18% to non-economic domestic issues (e.g., education), and 14% were related to the wars and the Middle East.

Methodology: This analysis looks at 25 selected issues that occurred within 50 words of at least one of the candidates’ names during the period of August 15 to September 15, 2008. To demonstrate change in “ownership” of issues, these data were compared with the period of August 1 to September 1. We opted to take a 30-day snapshot approximately every two weeks to flatten out any spikes in data that could be attributed to a single-day anomaly in the data. The data come from approximately 19,000 English-language mainstream media print and Web sources, more than 60,000 English-language message boards and 2 million blogs.

Local Media Giving Equal Coverage – Except in the Headlines

2008-10-09T08:41:00.004-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

For the first time since the 2008 presidential campaign became a two-man race, there is almost exact parity between the individual mentions of Obama and McCain when analyzing coverage in local print and broadcast media in three groups of states -- Red States, Blue States and Swing States.

However, the more interesting numbers are found, as we have reported before, when analyzing only headline mentions. In the seven-day period from September 30 to October 7, Dow Jones Insight identified approximately 22,000 headline-mentions of one or the other candidate.

By this measure, Obama is having more impact in local mainstream press than is McCain. Headlines can be seen as a proxy for what the press thinks is most important and therefore of what consumers of the media will consciously or subconsciously digest most easily. In the current analysis, we see a greater disparity in the Red States (Obama at 56% to McCain at 44%) than we do in the Blue States (Obama leading 53% to 47%). In the Swing States Obama’s lead is 54% to 46%.

Overall, when factoring in blogs, message boards, and national and international English-language media, coverage is leaning slightly toward McCain in the past seven days (51%-49%) but that’s coming mostly from a two-percentage-point difference in social media. With social media removed the breakdown is nearly dead-even.

Internationally, the English-language mainstream media is not evenly split. Obama leads in Europe, Africa and South America, and McCain has a razor-thin lead in the Pacific Rim.

Change is Coming, but Who is the ‘Change’ Candidate?

2008-10-09T08:36:00.002-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

In a year where the sitting president has the lowest approval rating of any in history, it is no shock that each candidate wants to embrace change. But which one has convinced the press that he is the man who stands for change?

It would seem the Republican might have the harder road here, and that showed early on with Obama using the term frequently and the press picking up on it.

But that changed the week of September 1 when McCain passed Obama in mentions of the word. He’d made a concerted effort to take back the word as he exclaimed during his acceptance speech at the GOP convention: "Let me just offer an advance warning to the old big-spending, do-nothing, me-first, country-second crowd: Change is coming. Change is coming."

This has been one of the mantras of his campaign during September, but perhaps it will not be possible for a Republican nominee to break free of Bush’s legacy as McCain’s September “change” charge seems to be wearing off. By the week of September 8 the candidates had equal share of the precious word and by the weeks of September 15 and 22, it seemed to be moving back to the Democrat.

Methodology: Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards.

Bailout-Related Language Dominates List of Newly Identified Phrases in Election Media Coverage, but Debate Also Makes a Splash

2008-09-30T14:23:00.008-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

Not surprisingly, turmoil in the U.S. financial markets was the subject of much of the candidates’ media coverage in the past week, and this dominance revealed itself in the list of terms and phrases newly identified by Dow Jones Insight as having appeared frequently in association with the two candidates. Terms associated with the first presidential debate – some related to the crisis, some not – also made the list.

The financial coverage appeared both directly, as in discussions of the proposed industry bailout and the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and indirectly, as when John McCain skipped an appearance on David Letterman in favor of one with Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News.

In mainstream media sources (press and Web) during the period September 22-29, “Wall Street” was mentioned in proximity to McCain’s name 5,807 times and near Obama’s name 4,930 times. The phrase “economic crisis” occurred 2,303 times near McCain and 1,517 times near Obama, while “bailout plan” was discussed 1,839 times in proximity to McCain and 1,319 to Obama. “Congressional leaders,” who were involved in formulating the plan, turned up 2,224 times in conjunction with McCain and 2,068 with Obama.

In social media sources (blogs and boards) many of the same terms were identified, but there were additional terms unique to the social media list. For example, citizen journalists focused more on the two candidates’ controversial connections to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than the mainstream press did in terms of the rankings, as both phrases landed near the top of the social media lists. These sites mentioned “Fannie Mae” or “Fannie” 2,299 times near McCain and 1,921 times near Obama, and “Freddie Mac” 2,040 times near McCain and 906 times near Obama. Variations on Katie Couric’s and David Letterman’s names also made the top 10 for McCain, with the discussion of McCain’s non-appearance driving the Letterman coverage (855 mentions) while Couric’s (1,088 of “Couric” and 992 of “Katie Couric”) involved both the Letterman issue as well as coverage of Couric’s interview of vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Of the terminology related to the debates, “presidential debate” appeared in the top 10 for both candidates in both media types – 4,542 for Obama in mainstream sources, 2,045 in blogs and boards; and 5,415 for McCain in mainstream sources and 2,045 in blogs and boards. Afghanistan also appeared on both lists for both candidates; in mainstream press it was mentioned 1,106 times near McCain and 995 times near Obama, while in social media it received 854 mentions with McCain and 705 with Obama. Oxford, the Mississippi city in which the debate was held, made the two mainstream press lists.

Methodology: “Discovered” terms include commonly identified phrases not already tracked as subjects in the Dow Jones Insight presidential election platform. Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards.

McCain, Obama Back on Top as Candidates Address Economy and Debate Takes Place as Scheduled; Palin Falls, Biden Stays Low

2008-09-30T14:15:00.007-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

As we reported in our previous analysis, by September 13 Sarah Palin’s coverage lead over the other three nominees was shrinking but still significant. In our latest trend analysis of mainstream and social media sources tracked by Dow Jones Insight, covering the period August 27 through September 27, that downward trend has for the most part continued while coverage of the two presidential candidates has risen.

As the week of September 15 unfolded – with Lehman Brothers declaring bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch being taken over by Bank of America, and panic over the financial markets escalating – the two presidential nominees ultimately re-emerged as the coverage leaders as they attempted to help lead the country out of crisis. Meanwhile, Palin’s coverage remained flat for most of that week but then resumed its overall downward trajectory as the McCain team reportedly moved to limit media access. Coverage of Democratic rival Joe Biden continued to register barely a blip.

The two presidential candidates’ coverage continued to increase the following week, in particular after the 24th when McCain announced plans to suspend his campaign, skip the debate, return to Washington and focus on helping solve the financial crisis. It rose further on the 25th as the Obama team accused McCain of grandstanding, and again on the 26th, as the debate was eventually held.

Most notably, toward the end of the tracked period Palin’s coverage appeared to be dropping to levels approaching that of Biden. The coverage peak she received on September 12, the day after her interview by ABC’s Charlie Gibson, gave way to a fairly steady decline. (Note that all candidates received lower coverage on September 6-7, 13-14, and 20-21, all of which were weekends.) Her interview with Katie Couric, broadcast on the 24th and 25th and considered by some to have been a poor showing by Palin, generated a barely perceptible bump in coverage. Biden, meanwhile, saw only the tiniest of coverage increases on the 23rd in the wake of his erroneous statements regarding the Great Depression and President Roosevelt. So whether by the design of their respective campaigns or by the happenstance of the worst economic crisis in decades, the media’s spotlight appears to be shining not all that brightly on the two candidates for vice president.

Methodology: Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards.

Vice Presidential Candidates Not Filling the Gaps

2008-09-30T14:04:00.006-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

In choosing their running mates, both Obama and McCain were viewed as having selected candidates who could compensate for their own areas of actual or perceived weakness – in Obama’s case the issue of experience especially as it relates to foreign policy, and in McCain’s case, his lack of appeal to the party’s conservative base as well as his age. Based on analysis of mainstream media sources tracked by Dow Jones Insight, they may not be getting quite what they expected.

During the period September 18-25*, Joe Biden’s name was mentioned 470 times in connection with the issue of experience, representing 14% of his 3,466 total mentions on the 10 issues being considered. Obama, meanwhile, received 999 mentions, or 6% of his total 17,044 mentions on the 10 issues. So while Biden received fewer mentions on the topic due to his lower coverage overall, the issue of “experience” represented a significant portion of his overall coverage, indicating that this message is coming across well.

Another area in which Biden’s share exceeded Obama’s during the period was the issue of taxes, though this outcome may be have been more inadvertent than by design. Biden received 986 mentions in conjunction with taxes, or 28% of his total, while Obama received 2,316 mentions on taxes, or 14% of his total mentions. The primary driver for Biden’s coverage was his statement that it would be patriotic for wealthy Americans to pay higher taxes – a statement the Republicans immediately attacked and that served as a distraction from the foreign policy expertise that Biden’s presence on the ticket was expected to fill.

Looking at some key foreign policy issues – specifically Iraq, Iran and terrorism – Biden only had a higher proportion of coverage than Obama on Iraq, with 164 mentions, or 5%, compared to Obama’s 437, or 3%. On Iran, Biden had 103 mentions, or 3%, compared to Obama’s 644, or 4%, while on terrorism, Biden received 172 mentions, or 5%, and Obama received 883 mentions, also 5%.

On the Republican side, Palin received higher percentages of coverage than her running mate on a number of issues unrelated to the reasons she was selected. Aside from the economy, which was the top issue for both McCain and Palin, her largest percentage of coverage on the 10 issues came on the topic of experience, for which she received 1,455 mentions, or 20% of her 7,302 total mentions on the issues considered. McCain received 1,513 mentions, or 8% of a total 18,857 mentions on the tracked issues. Given her short tenure as governor, discussions of Palin and experience are clearly not a positive development for the McCain team.

Palin also exceeded McCain on Iran, Iraq and terrorism, topics on which her knowledge is being challenged. She received 726 mentions, or 10%, on Iran compared to McCain’s 751 mentions, or 4%; 190 mentions on Iraq, or 2.6%, compared to McCain’s 410, or 2.2%; and 586 mentions, or 8%, on terrorism compared to McCain’s 1,206, or 6%.

On the issue of energy, an expected Palin strength, the vice presidential candidate received 249 mentions, or 3%, which McCain also exceeded, netting 883 mentions, or 5%.

*The analyzed period begins a few days after the start of the current crisis in the financial markets (September 15) and ends prior to the first presidential debate (September 26). We opted to omit those periods as they would have skewed coverage toward the economy and foreign policy.

Methodology: Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. The 10 issues chosen were selected as most closely aligned with the areas of weakness the candidates needed to fill.

Economy Moves to Top Spot Among Tracked Issues as Overall Issues Coverage Surges

2008-09-30T13:46:00.010-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

It was a busy month in terms of media coverage of key election issues, as total issues-oriented mentions rose 21% to 1,377,984, compared to 1,137,582 mentions in the previous rolling month, which itself had represented a 22% jump from the preceding rolling timeframe.

The economy, as expected, was the most covered issue in the latest rolling one-month period tracked by Dow Jones Insight, moving up two spots from the previous period. A related issue on the housing slump also advanced, rising three slots to 19 from 22.
Among the issues changing hands were education and jobs, both of which went from being too close to call to going to McCain’s side of the ledger. Obama took back the issue of fundraising, which he’d lost to a tie last time around, but he lost both faith and Israel, now too close to call.

In total, Obama leads on four issues and McCain on 19, while two are currently too close to call.

And the Winner Is… Palin?

2008-09-16T13:53:00.006-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

In the coverage race at least, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin continues to hold the lead, according to analysis of mainstream and social media sources tracked by Dow Jones Insight.

While she had virtually zero coverage in the days prior to her August 29th unveiling as the GOP vice presidential nominee, in the period from August 30 through September 13 she led her own running mate, John McCain, on all but two days – though his coverage totals clearly received a boost from her too – while her coverage exceeded that of Democratic nominee Barack Obama on all days in the period and left vice presidential rival Joe Biden far behind.

Palin ceded the coverage lead to McCain on August 31, the day before the Republican convention was scheduled to begin, while McCain defended the decision to pick Palin, as well as on September 11, the seventh anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks.

The coverage gap between Palin and the other candidates was at its widest on September 4, the final night of the Republican convention. It has shrunk somewhat since then as coverage of all four candidates eased heading into the weekend, but remained a significant edge.

When considering the two presidential candidates only during the same time period (August 30-September 13), McCain had 179,004 total mentions in all tracked media sources, or a 55% share, to Obama’s 148,000 mentions, or 45% share.

McCain also led in terms of headline mentions in mainstream press, with 21,995 mentions, or 54%, to Obama’s 18,769, or 46%, while in social media sources (blogs and boards) Obama had 33,120 headline mentions to McCain’s 32,900, for a 50-50 split.

Methodology: All charts and figures above reflect mentions of the candidates in both mainstream and social media sources. Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards.

Palin May Have Stolen the Show in Minnesota, but Obama Still Pulled in Higher Convention Coverage

2008-09-16T13:47:00.008-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

While the selection of Palin has shifted the spotlight toward the Republicans over the past few weeks, when we analyze mainstream media coverage of both candidates around the time of their respective conventions, Obama still comes out ahead.

We looked at the four scheduled days of each convention plus the preview day before and the wrap-up day afterward – or August 24-29 for the Democrats and August 31-September 5 for the Republicans. The Democratic convention time period saw 91,395 total mentions of both candidates, 14% more coverage than the 80,250 total mentions in the days surrounding the hurricane-shortened Republican convention.

While the higher overall total is understandable given that the Democratic convention was a four-day event compared with three days for the GOP, Obama had a more dominant share of the conversation during his convention than McCain had during his. Specifically, Obama had 54,624 mentions, or a 60% share, around the time of the Democratic convention, compared to McCain’s 36,771 mentions, or 40%, at that time. In the days surrounding the Republican convention, McCain received 45,448 mentions, for a 57% share, compared to Obama’s 34,802 mentions, or 43%.

While each won their respective convention periods, Obama won his by a wider margin. Also, when combining mentions from both time periods, Obama received 52% of the total, compared to McCain’s 48%.

That Obama retained a lead is especially notable given that the day after the Democratic convention was the day McCain announced Palin as his running mate, which boosted McCain-related coverage during the Democratic convention time period. The timing of the Palin announcement was a clear effort to steal Obama’s thunder, but it couldn’t quite offset the coverage Obama received during the Democratic convention itself.

Methodology: Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites.

If Money Talks, Which Candidate Speaks Loudest?

2008-09-16T13:44:00.005-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

With Barack Obama’s announcement this week that he had raised a record $66 million in August and lined up more than 500,000 first-time donors, we looked at how the four candidates compared recently on the issue of fundraising.

Obama, by far the leader in donations from the public, also leads the way in terms of media coverage on the topic, though not by much. There were 1,740 mentions of his name in close proximity to fundraising-related terms in the previous seven days, or 36% of the total 4,826 fundraising mentions of the four candidates over that period. Because Obama declined to take public funds to finance his campaign on the assumption that he could raise far more on his own and spend it as he wished, fundraising events will continue to be a central activity for the Democratic nominee going forward. And with Obama as the far more galvanizing half of the ticket, his running mate, Joe Biden, has not played a very public fundraising role, netting just 279 mentions related to the issue, or 6% of the total.

On the Republican side, McCain, who has accepted public financing and is therefore limited in how much he can raise and how he can spend it, is expected to spend far less time drumming up donations, leaving much of that role to his running mate. Nonetheless, in the previous week McCain drew 1,665 mentions in reference to fundraising, or 35% of all fundraising mentions, as the media compared the state of McCain’s coffers with Obama’s. Palin, meanwhile, received 1,142 mentions on the issue, or 24%, as she took on a major fundraising role for the McCain campaign, with the goal of appealing to the conservative base and enabling McCain to focus on the issues.

Methodology: All charts and figures above reflect mentions of the candidates in both mainstream and social media sources. Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards.

Higher Overall Coverage for McCain Translates to Wins on Additional Issues

2008-09-16T13:15:00.011-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

Media coverage of the campaign issues being tracked by Dow Jones Insight surged again in the most recent rolling 30-day period, as the trend in issues ownership toward “red” reflected the overall increase in McCain-related coverage.

In the period August 15 – September 15, McCain had a note-worthy edge (for our purposes, six percentage points or greater) in 17 of the 25 issues being tracked, up from six in our previous analysis. Among the issues he added were the economy, taxes, terrorism, health care and abortion (each with a split of 54% for McCain to 46% for Obama), as well as energy (59% to 41%) and the environment (56% to 44%). Obama owned just five issues, down from seven last time out, and added no new issues. Still on the Obama side of the issues ledger were faith, race, Israel, gun control and Nafta. The two on which he lost the lead were health care, which went to McCain, and fundraising, which was too close to call (note that the parameters of this analysis differ from the fundraising discussion above in both time period and number of candidates considered).

Education moved up five spots from our last analysis, though the split between candidates was fairly even. Both had made education a key element of their acceptance speeches and recent stump speeches, and both had controversies arise over sex education, or at least claims by the other side about their record on sex education. The issue of terrorism also rose three places, reflecting numerous convention speeches as well as the seventh anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks. Energy and fuel prices fell back in the rankings, to ninth and 16th positions from fifth and 11th, respectively, as gas prices at the pump eased a bit from their July highs (before spiking briefly near the end of the tracked period due to Hurricane Ike); both issues went from being too close to call last time around to being dominated by McCain.

Total issues-based coverage was up 22% in the latest timeframe, reaching 1,137,582 mentions of all 25 issues compared with 934,408.

Methodology: This analysis looks at 25 selected issues that occurred within 50 words of at least one of the candidates’ names during the period of August 15 to September 15, 2008. To demonstrate change in “ownership” of issues, these data were compared with the period of August 1 to September 1. We opted to take a 30-day snapshot approximately every two weeks to flatten out any spikes in data that could be attributed to a single-day anomaly in the data. The data come from approximately 19,000 English-language mainstream media print and Web sources, more than 60,000 English-language message boards and 2 million blogs.

McCain’s Surprise VP Selection Gets the Media Talking, Especially Bloggers

2008-09-04T15:24:00.002-04:00

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

In what is being called the biggest surprise of the campaign thus far, Republican soon-to-be nominee John McCain tapped Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate on Friday, August 29, just hours after the end of the four-day hooplah that was the Democratic National Convention. The Palin announcement generated quite a stir in mainstream media and, even more so, on the blogs and boards, and succeeded in taking the spotlight back from the Democrats. (We will compare coverage of the two conventions in a future analysis, after the close of the Republican convention.)

Palin received 7,989 mentions in mainstream sources on the day of the announcement, as the press scrambled to produce background on the largely unknown governor and puzzled out the reasons for and implications of her selection. That figure was 17% higher than the number of mentions received by Joe Biden (6,854) on August 23, the day he was named, somewhat expectedly, as Obama’s running mate. In social media, the difference was even greater, with Palin receiving 13,822 mentions on August 29, 65% higher than the 8,384 Biden mentions on the day he was announced.

Palin’s numbers are all the more notable given the general lack of coverage she’s received from the media in the past. The number of mainstream mentions she received on the day of the announcement was more than four times the total she’d received for all of 2008 (1,720 mentions from January 1 through August 27), and her social media mentions that day were more than 11 times her year-to-date total of 1,142.

Interestingly, the total for Palin in social media rose even further the day after the announcement, to 15,022 mentions on August 30, while Biden’s fell the day after his announcement, to 5,823. In mainstream media, for both candidates the number of mentions fell the day after the candidate was announced.

The VPs Are Generating Talk, But What About? Experience, and Lack Thereof

2008-09-04T15:21:00.002-04:00

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

Given her brief 20 months in office as Alaska governor and previous role as small-town mayor, the primary topic of discussion regarding Palin has thus far been experience, or her perceived lack thereof, especially as it compares to Obama’s and Biden’s. But her stances on abortion and her close association with the Christian faith have also been among the first and best-known bits of her background to emerge.

Of Palin’s total 46,462 mentions from August 27 to September 3 that involved one of the issues tracked by Dow Jones Insight, some 13,118, or 28%, were in relation to the term “experience,” as Democrats derided Palin’s lack of it, Republicans defended her record and pundits said the Republicans may have undermined one of their key arguments against Obama.

On the issue of abortion, Palin received 7,540 mentions, or 16% of her total issues-related mentions, while the issue of faith garnered 6,958 mentions, or 15%. Surprisingly, the topic of energy generated just 2,808 mentions in association with Palin, or 6%, despite her involvement with, and vocal opinions about, various key energy issues.

The biggest driver of Biden’s recent coverage has also been “experience,” as his presence on the ticket is seen to bring the experience that Obama lacks. For the period August 18 through September 1, Biden was mentioned in proximity to “experience” 11,115 times, or 31% of all Biden mentions on the tracked issues, which represents an even higher proportion of his overall total than Palin’s 28%. (Note: The date range for our Biden analysis goes back further than Palin’s because he received significant coverage as a likely running mate prior to being selected and was specifically seen as bringing experience and foreign-policy credentials to the Democratic ticket. Therefore, the total number of mentions on each topic is not comparable between candidates, though the shares for each issue, as a percentage of each candidate’s issues-related coverage, are comparable).

The theme of “change” also received strong coverage in regard to Biden as he joined the Democratic rallying cry for change while simultaneously his naming was considered by some to be out of step with the concept, in light of his more than three decades in Washington. Biden was mentioned 7,569 times in close proximity to the term “change,” or 21% of his total 36,136 issues-related mentions. Terrorism (1,505, or 4%), Iraq (1,275, or 4%) and Afghanistan (1,008, or 3%) also were among the top 10 issues for Biden during the tracked period, but given his role on the ticket, these figures were somewhat surprisingly low.

Methodology: The charts indicate coverage of both candidates on key issues in mainstream and social media in the time periods indicated. For Palin, we chose the most recent 7 days because she had little election-related coverage prior to being named McCain’s running mate on the 29th. For Biden, we include several days prior to his being named, as he was already being discussed as a likely running mate. Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards.

Surprise Vice President Selection Finally Puts McCain in the Coverage Lead

2008-09-04T15:18:00.004-04:00

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

If the selection of Palin accomplishes nothing else, it did finally push McCain’s media coverage past Obama’s, something no other McCain media strategy had achieved.

During the Democratic convention held August 25-28, Obama had significantly widened his coverage lead in all media sources tracked by Dow Jones Insight, including mainstream and social media, peaking on the 28th and 29th with much talk about his acceptance speech. But McCain stole the show on the 29th with news of his vice presidential nominee, and held the lead for the next several days. We will check back in our next analysis to see if he can maintain the lead beyond the Republican convention.

Methodology: Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards.

McCain Regains Lead on Foreign-Policy Issues as Candidates’ Issues Coverage Rebounds

2008-09-04T15:06:00.006-04:00

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

Media coverage of the issues being tracked by Dow Jones Insight surged in the latest rolling one-month period as a result of the two parties’ nominating conventions and vice presidential picks, but the increase seems to have helped McCain more, as he regained the lead on several foreign-policy issues that Obama had won with his trip to the Middle East and Europe earlier this summer, and drew closer on several other issues.

For the period August 1 – September 1, the 25 tracked issues were discussed a total of 934,408 times, up 29% from 724,799 in the previous rolling one-month span.

McCain took leading shares on Iraq (55%), Afghanistan (53%) and Iran (56%), which were led by Obama in our previous analysis, as well as on North Korea (55%), which had formerly been too close to call. He gained ground in terms of coverage on the economy, abortion, terrorism, education, immigration and the housing slump, all of which had been led by Obama in our last analysis and are now too close to call. The only issue on which McCain lost ground to Obama is same-sex marriage, which is now a statistical tie.

A few issues saw significant movement in the latest period. Abortion moved up from 17 to 6, reflecting several developments, including discussion of the topic by both candidates at a forum in August, controversy over Obama’s voting history in Illinois, statements of support in the Democratic party platform and in Obama’s acceptance speech at the convention, and discussions of Palin’s stance on abortion. Health care also rose significantly, to 8th place from 15th in our last analysis, helped largely by several Democratic convention speeches.

Obama Takes Command of Five More Issues

2008-08-19T13:22:00.007-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

In our previous analysis, we found that Obama was in the lead in media coverage on 10 of the 25 key election issues being tracked in mainstream and social media by Dow Jones Insight, a rather impressive performance. But in the latest period, from July 17 to August 17, he demonstrated a clear lead on 15 of the 25 issues, wresting one away from McCain and breaking formerly statistical ties in four others.

The five new issues on which Obama is now clearly ahead of McCain include the economy, health care, abortion, the housing slump and Nafta. The housing slump issue was formerly led by McCain, while the other four issues had been too close to call, defined as those that differ by six or fewer percentage points. While Obama’s lead in media coverage in general (see the next post for more detail) would certainly explain his lead on many issues, it is still surprising that his advantage on issues is almost across-the-board.

But perhaps it isn’t as bad as it seems for McCain. While he holds clear leads on only three issues, and all three of those are among the six least-covered issues, he is tied with Obama (i.e., too close to call) on six of the 14 most-covered issues. Among them are key domestic issues like energy, taxes, fuel prices and the environment. Given that he has lagged Obama in total media mentions since we began tracking election-related media coverage, it is a pretty fair achievement that he’s maintaining parity on so many issues.

Of the remaining eight of the top 14 most covered issues, Obama’s tour of the Middle East and Europe in late July helped him take the lead on three – Afghanistan, Israel and Iran. But now that several weeks have passed since that trip, all three of those issues have fallen in the rankings compared to our previous report, and they could be up for grabs once that time period falls outside our analysis.

Methodology: This analysis looks at 25 selected issues that occurred within 50 words of at least one of the candidates’ names during the period of July 17 to August 17, 2008. To demonstrate change in “ownership” of issues, these data were compared with the period of July 6 to August 6. We opted to take a 30-day snapshot approximately every two weeks to flatten out any spikes in data that could be attributed to a single-day anomaly in the data. The data come from approximately 19,000 English-language mainstream media print and Web sources, more than 50,000 English-language message boards and 2 million blogs.

Olympics, Vacations Help McCain Narrow Overall Coverage Gap, but Only a Little…

2008-08-19T13:19:00.007-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

The McCain team took only modest advantage of Obama’s weeklong Hawaiian vacation to get its candidate in the news, opting instead to focus on fundraising, controlling press access to keep McCain on-message and getting a bit of a rest for him too. Nonetheless, McCain’s overall coverage numbers in mainstream and social media in the period of July 17 to August 17 (irrespective of issue, as opposed to the issues-oriented coverage discussed above) did improve relative to Obama’s, especially after Obama’s tour of the Middle East and Europe came to an end.

Obama had opened up an enormous coverage advantage as he toured the Middle East and Europe between July 19 and July 26, giving several high-profile speeches. But starting around July 30, McCain began to close the gap somewhat, especially around August 8th, when Obama set off for a vacation in Hawaii and much of the world (and the media) turned its attention toward the Olympics. He never quite did eliminate the gap, though he came close in the past few days.

On a percentage share basis, McCain came closest to matching Obama on August 16, the day on which the two candidates spoke at a forum at a California megachurch. McCain received 49% of the 9,250 total mentions of the two candidates, or 4,559 mentions compared to Obama’s 4,691. The difference of 132 mentions was also the smallest difference in raw numbers in the period analyzed. McCain also performed well on August 6, when he received 47% of 19,974 total mentions, or 9,334 to Obama’s 10,640; on August 3 (a Sunday), when he received 46% of 13,873 total mentions, or 6,378 mentions to Obama’s 7,495; and on July 31, when he received 45% of 21,335 mentions, or 9,632 to Obama’s 11,703.

For the period as a whole, McCain drew a share of 42%, or 218,796 mentions, versus 296,179 mentions, or 58%, for Obama.

Methodology: Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards.

…Still, Obama Maintains Big Lead in Headline Mentions

2008-08-19T13:10:00.009-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

Looking at mentions of both candidates in headlines only, which we view as a measure of what’s top-of-mind for editors and bloggers, the race is not nearly as close.

In mainstream press sources from July 17 through August 17, Obama’s name was mentioned in headlines 52,790 times, for a 65% share of all headline mentions, compared with just 28,588, or 35%, for McCain.

The picture in social media was not much better for McCain, as Obama was mentioned 59,346 times, for a 63% share, while McCain was mentioned 34,659 times, for a 37% share.

Obama Still Leading Big Picture Media Race Despite Noise to the Contrary

2008-08-07T10:02:00.003-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

While there has been much talk by pundits about how McCain has been catching up with Obama in certain areas of media coverage as well as in the polls, the Dow Jones Insight analysis of the overall media landscape shows Obama still dominating mainstream and social media coverage of most issues.

Looking at the period of July 6 to August 6, 2008, our analysis shows that Obama continues to receive more coverage than McCain in 10 of the 25 issues being tracked*. McCain leads in four of the 25. The other 11 are too close to call. But perhaps more importantly, the issues Obama “owns” are also among the most discussed (6 of the top 10 are his; the other four are ties) while the four in which McCain leads are in the bottom seven slots.

Of the 11 issues that are too close to call – defined as those that differ by six or fewer percentage points – two significant issues (energy and fuel prices) were previously McCain’s while the other four (health care, abortion, Nafta and North Korea) were Obama’s during the period of June 20 to July 20. Energy is one of Obama’s two stated areas of focus for the week (the other being the economy) and while he has cut into McCain’s lead on energy, coverage of the economy is still pretty much even.

Obama’s lead holds when the data are sliced various ways, as well. In the period of July 30 to August 6, he has more coverage of domestic issues both on blogs and in the press; of international issues both on blogs and in the press; of wedge issues; more coverage in local press in the Red States, Blue States and the Swing States; and he still leads in the all-important “headline mentions” race.

However, the talk shows and pundits are talking about McCain catching up. So what are they seeing? It is possible to conclude that growth in Obama’s lead is slowing. When analyzing the number of daily mentions over the period of July 6 to August 6, we see that the trend lines for both candidates are rising more or less in tandem. But in the weeks before July 6, Obama’s upward trend was much steeper than McCain’s. In other words, Obama does seem to be gathering more mentions each day at a slower rate than before.

* Methodology: This analysis looks at 25 selected issues that occurred within 50 words of at least one of the candidates’ names during the period of July 6 to August 6, 2008. To demonstrate change in “ownership” of issues, these data were compared with the period of June 20 to July 20. We opted to take a 30-day snapshot approximately every two weeks to flatten out any spikes in data that could be attributed to a single day anomaly in the data. The data come from approximately 18,000 English-language mainstream media print and Web sources, more than 50,000 English-language message boards and 2 million blogs.

Media in Swing States Favoring McCain?

2008-07-22T15:06:00.006-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

As we’ve stated before, we think counting headline mentions is a good yardstick for measuring what the media considers to be the most important parts of the election story each day. This time around, we looked at headline mentions in mainstream press, broken down along the Red State/Blue State/Swing State divide.

During the period July 14 – July 21, Obama drew the highest share of headline mentions from mainstream press in the Red States, accounting for 66% of all headline mentions of the two candidates (or 3,072 mentions), compared with McCain’s 34% (or 1,552). Obama also led in Blue States, where sources put his name up top only slightly less often, with 64% (or 5,575 mentions) to McCain’s 36% (or 3,109). In the Swing States press, however, while Obama still enjoyed a sizeable lead, it was smaller than in either Red or Blue States. As shown in Chart 3 below, press outlets in Swing States chose to highlight McCain’s name 38% of the time (or 3,070 headline mentions) to Obama’s 62% (5,001 mentions).
Chart: Headline Mentions in Swing States

Methodology: Figures in the chart reflect mentions of the two candidates in headlines in newspapers, Web sites, and television and radio broadcasts originating in the states listed below. Note that not all 50 U.S. states are included in the three groups.

Blue States are defined as those that were carried by the Democrats in all four of the most recent presidential elections: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. Red States are defined as those that were carried by the GOP in all four of the most recent presidential elections: Alaska, Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming. Swing states are defined as those that were carried twice by the Democrats and twice by the Republicans in the four most recent presidential elections: Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Fuel Prices, Jobs Cuts and Housing Slumps – Oh, My

2008-07-22T15:00:00.001-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

With the current state of the economy a hot topic, we have begun tracking several new issues that are playing key roles in the overall economic picture – namely fuel prices, the housing market and the jobs situation. Considering the direness of the discussion around these topics in some corners of the media, it appears that on the whole, the press and bloggers are talking about them in relation to the candidates somewhat less than we’d have expected. As always, this may or may not be a reflection of where the candidates want to take the conversation, but it shows the amount of attention the media and bloggers are giving the issues as they cover the candidates.

Of the 24 key domestic and international issues currently tracked by Dow Jones Insight, only one of the new topics – fuel prices – cracked the top 10. The issue was mentioned in the context of either candidate 27,443 times in all tracked sources (mainstream and social media) during the period June 20 – July 20, making it the eighth-most-discussed issue. The topic of jobs was referenced 22,335 times, ranking it 11th, while the state of the housing market came up a surprisingly low 5,578 times, putting it way down the list in the 21st spot. The issue of the economy as a whole, however, rose to the top spot among all issues, potentially offering some proof that politicians prefer to talk in generalities rather than offer specific plans.

We will update this table regularly to provide an at-a-glance view of how coverage of the issues fluctuates over the course of the campaign.

Methodology: Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards.

Obama Continues to Lead in Total Mentions

2008-07-22T14:40:00.009-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

While McCain received fewer mentions in the context of all four countries discussed above, the totals are actually more competitive than they first appear, given that McCain is still receiving less coverage than Obama overall. In the same week analyzed above (July 14 – July 21), Obama was mentioned 60,654 times in all tracked mainstream and social media sources, for a 59% share, compared to McCain’s 42,463 mentions, or 41% share.

Even after stripping out all mentions pertaining to the issues of faith and race (on which Obama has consistently trounced McCain), Obama still drew 57% of all mentions in the seven days compared with 43% for McCain.

Taking that split into account, Obama still bested McCain on Afghanistan and Israel – as his share on the two issues exceeded his share of all coverage minus the two excluded issues – while McCain improved his performance on Iraq and Iran, as his share on those issues exceeded his share overall.

Methodology: Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards.

Obama and the Middle East

2008-07-22T14:29:00.007-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

Also ranking high and moving up in the table of issues is that of Afghanistan, where Obama stopped on his current tour of the Middle East and Europe and toward which he says the U.S. must shift its focus, instead of Iraq.

In the period July 14 – July 21, as Obama geared up for and then began the trip, he was mentioned in reference to Afghanistan 8,299 times, or 61% of all mentions of the two candidates in conjunction with Afghanistan in mainstream and social media sources. That was well above McCain’s 5,355 mentions, or 39%.

He also exceeded McCain in mentions of Iraq and Israel, both also destinations on his tour, as well as Iran. In all tracked sources, Obama was mentioned 2,052 times in relation to Iraq, or 54% of the total, while McCain drew 1,779 mentions, or 46%. McCain kept the totals close by responding to the Obama trip with a steady stream of criticism of Obama’s earlier opposition to the surge of troops in Iraq and his proposal to withdraw combat troops within 16 months.

On the issue of Israel, Obama received 1,427 mentions, or 59%, compared to 990, or 41%, for McCain. Obama was mentioned 1,416 times (54%) in relation to Iran, compared to McCain’s 1,217 (46%).

Obama Maintains Clear Lead over McCain in Media Mentions

2008-07-08T13:36:00.004-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

Barack Obama continues to be the candidate to beat as he goes week after week with more coverage than John McCain.

Not surprisingly, for much of the primary season, McCain took a back seat to the excitement of the race between Obama and his then rival Hillary Clinton. When Clinton stepped out of the spotlight, we started looking closely at the Obama-McCain tallies, expecting the numbers would get closer during the dog days of summer campaigning. And the numbers have tightened; but in most cases only modestly.

Over the past month, McCain has closed the gap, but he’s still maintaining his self-proclaimed “underdog” status when it comes to his count of individual mentions in the mainstream press and across social media, according to analysis conducted using Dow Jones Insight.

The basic measure of this is through total media mentions. In the seven-day period ending July 7, Dow Jones Insight tallied 90,882 mentions of either candidate across all media types. Obama racked up 56% of those mentions to McCain’s 44%.

Looking at a subset of the U.S. media – just newspapers and broadcast outlets in the Red States, Blue States and Swing States – we see a closer race. The analysis shows 54% for Obama and 46% for McCain in each of these three groups. In the past these numbers have always been close, but this is the first time we've noticed they are in lock-step, demonstrating to us that the media are on the whole not being swayed by the the voting tendancies of their audience.

When one considers just message boards and blogs, the numbers typically lean more toward Obama, though this week McCain cut three percentage points off Obama’s lead, making the social media breakdown 57% for Obama and 43% for McCain.

Methodology: Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards.

Perhaps Headlines Tell the True Story

2008-07-08T13:29:00.004-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

Our favorite media metric for measuring election coverage comes from counting headlines. This seems to be a good yardstick by which we can measure what the media considers to be the most important parts of the election story each day and what the blogging community is countering with. We see this as a measure of what’s top-of-mind for the editors and bloggers. This week when counting all headline mentions of either candidate, we found 31,193 across all media. A decisive 63% of those were Obama mentions to 37% McCain mentions. (Headlines mentioning both men were essentially counted twice, once for each of them.)

Bloggers are very much still focused on Obama with the split there this week at 66% to 34%.The mainstream press is slightly more even-handed with a 61% to 39% breakdown, again favoring Obama.

When Considering only Policy Issues, the Numbers Start to Even Out

2008-07-08T13:24:00.004-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

Certainly not all mentions of candidates’ names are ones the campaigns are pleased to see. So it follows that more is not always better; and saying "Obama leads McCain in media mentions" doesn't paint the full picture.

Obama does seem to continue to garner a lot of coverage about what we consider to be non-substantive issues – talk of his faith, his race, his fundraising and his wife. During the seven days ending July 7, Obama saw 13,591 of his mentions being in context of one of these four discussions. McCain had his name mentioned in the context of one of these, half as many times (6,910 mentions).

Overall, the picture continues to favor Obama, but when looking only at mentions of the candidates in the context of what we consider important policy issues facing the nation, the media-coverage race is nearly a dead-heat.

Depending on which issues you include or exclude, the tally slips one way or the other, but remains close. For example we see a statistical tie when looking at the sum of coverage of the economy, the environment, health care, taxes, gun control, energy, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and terrorism. In the seven days ending July 7 we tallied 64,392 mentions of Obama in close proximity to one of these issues and 64,081 for McCain. For each issue the two are consistently very close.

Media Bias Can Sneak in if You’re Not Watching Carefully

2008-07-08T13:17:00.003-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

Here is an interesting observation we came across while conducting other analysis.

If you think news editors can’t have an impact on their readers’ perception of the news, consider this.

A July 6 news analysis by an Associated Press reporter paints a pretty negative picture of the state of the McCain campaign. “John McCain calls himself an underdog. That may be an understatement,” so states the lede of political reporter Liz Sidoti’s piece. McCain trails Obama “in polls, organization and money while trying to succeed a deeply unpopular fellow Republican in a year that favors Democrats.” The article goes on to point out some highlights, but it’s mostly gloom for McCain.

The article ran in several newspapers including the El Paso Times, The (Columbia) State, Myrtle Beach’s The Sun News, The Beaufort (South Carolina) Gazette and the Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star. In every case, the headline that topped it was: “Analysis: McCain struggles to regain footing.”

Now, the piece also ran in Utah’s conservative Deseret Morning News (owned indirectly by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). There the headline seems to have lost the “struggles” (and the word “analysis”) saying only “McCain Regaining Footing.”

Campaign-Finance Decisions Causing Trouble for Both Candidates

2008-06-24T15:14:00.003-04:00

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

Obama is enjoying a tremendous lead in money raised to support his campaign, but he also seems to be winning the battle for favorable coverage on the issue of fundraising itself, which took a rather contentious turn last week.

Obama announced June 19 that he would not take public financing for the general election, a decision that means he is free to spend the record-breaking several hundred million dollars he’s raised thus far. The McCain camp says that announcement is a reversal of a pledge he’d made earlier in the campaign. McCain, meanwhile, has raised far less overall and plans to accept public financing.

Obama has received quite a bit of bad press over the announcement and has been labeled a flip-flopper by some. But it appears that the discussion of McCain’s resulting financing disadvantage, plus some finger-pointing at McCain by the Obama team as it defended the decision, has ultimately outweighed the flip-flopper criticism and produced more negative language in association with McCain than with Obama. Obama said his campaign would need the additional funds in expectation of future anti-Obama ads that would need to be rebutted and noted that McCain himself, a well-known campaign-finance reformer, was still taking money from lobbyists and PACs.

For the five days after Obama’s announcement (June 19-23), Dow Jones Insight identified 1,118 press documents mentioning Obama and/or McCain in proximity to terms related to campaign finance, and the automated favorability-analysis feature found 538 of these documents to contain either favorable or unfavorable language dominating in reference to the candidate and issue.

Looking only at this non-neutral coverage, we found that Obama was discussed unfavorably on the topic of fundraising in 249 separate articles, or 86% of his total non-neutral coverage, while just 42 articles, or 14%, discussed Obama and financing using favorable language. But McCain fared worse, as 222 articles, or 90% of his non-neutral coverage, was unfavorable, and just 25 documents, or 10%, were favorable.

Methodology: Favorability analysis is of English-language documents only and was generated by software-based analysis which has been shown to be 80% accurate in similar corpora. Favorable and unfavorable ratings are assigned based on the words found in close proximity to a candidate's name. All neutral documents were excluded. The remaining 538 documents are those with discernible favorability. The source set excludes social media and press releases and includes global English-language newspapers, magazines, broadcast transcripts and newswires.

‘Race’ is Most Discussed Obama Issue in Press, and a Close Second in Social Media

2008-06-24T15:05:00.006-04:00

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

It’s stating the obvious to say that race will be a factor in November’s election, but we are surprised at how the issue has been playing out comparatively in the press and social media and in relation to other key issues, according to analysis by Dow Jones Insight.

We examined Obama’s coverage in relation to the issue of race over the past 14 days, limiting the timeframe in an effort to exclude the initial bump of post-nomination commentary about the historic nature of the nomination and focus instead on how the media has been covering race in comparison to other current high-profile issues as the campaign moves into the nuts-and-bolts phase of getting elected.

In the mainstream press (print and Web) during the period June 10 through June 23, race was the top attention-getter in relation to Obama, edging out coverage of the faltering economy. Race was discussed in proximity to Obama’s name on 5,101 occasions, just barely exceeding the 5,020 mentions of the economy. Taxes and fundraising were also well-covered topics in articles about Obama, with 4,528 and 4,090 mentions, respectively. (See the next post for further insight on the fundraising issue.)

In social-media sources, meanwhile, race was a close second in terms of number of mentions in conjunction with Obama with 4,265, trailing faith-related discussions, which totaled 4,412 mentions. Both faith and race reflected continuing rumors and denials about Obama’s religious affiliation, his apologies to two Muslim women wearing head scarves who were asked to change seats at a rally, and reports on the Father’s Day speech he made in a Chicago church. As it did in the mainstream press, fundraising ranked high, with 2,547 mentions, while the economy and taxes lagged far behind with just 1,928 and 1,898 mentions, respectively.

Methodology: Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards. Issues shown reflect the top coverage generators from among domestic issues for each source type discussed.

McCain Still Struggling to Get as Much Press as Obama

2008-06-18T17:18:00.004-04:00

By Glenn Fannick

Dow Jones Insight Staff

Will McCain ever catch up to Obama in media coverage? For months it seemed he was often relegated to the inside pages and mentioned fewer times or in shorter pieces as the media and the public focused on what was called a historic race between Clinton and Obama. The McCain team recognized their struggle to be noticed, announcing a push in April to get him back in the media's sights. It failed. His coverage remained flat.

It was Clinton’s continued candidacy, people assumed, that was keeping McCain tomorrow's story. As soon as she dropped out, his camp certainly hoped McCain would be getting equal billing.

And to some extent we are seeing things change. Obama's media lead has been shrinking a bit in the past week or so; but with two weeks since the Democratic primaries ended and 10 days since Clinton officially ended her campaign for the presidency, the numbers still show Obama ahead of McCain in virtually every way we slice the numbers.

Dow Jones Insight tracked 54,920 mentions of the two candidates' names over the past seven days from about 20,000 mainstream (print and online) media sources. Obama accounted for about 56% of those mentions compared to McCain's 44%. In the two million social media sites analyzed, Dow Jones Insight found Obama’s lead a few percentage points narrower, however, with 55% of total mentions for Obama compared to 45% for McCain.

The only place McCain seems to be talked about more is on the talk shows on MSNBC, where he consistently outpaces the Democrats in individual mentions. The other networks analyzed (Fox News Channel and CNN) continue to talk about Obama more than McCain on their regular political shows.

If you compare the quality of coverage of the two candidates in all media, you see perhaps a more telling picture. While McCain is slowly closing in on Obama in the number of times each is mentioned, a larger gap exists when you look at headline mentions. Obama was mentioned in 16,196 headlines in our survey from June 11 to 17, while McCain had only 9,264 mentions – a 64% / 36% split.

'Change' is Unchanged on Top of 'Hot-Button' Word List

2008-06-18T17:09:00.005-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

In the Dow Jones Insight index of hot-button words, we see "change" again leading the pack in the period of June 11 to June 17, with 4,747 occurrences in the context of one or the other of the candidates (62% of those were alongside Obama). In second with about half as many mentions was "hope" (this time 60% of those were with Obama). "Experience" was a close third, with McCain getting 56% of those mentions. "Progress," a word McCain tried to use as a counter to "change," did not show forward movement and was fourth; the candidates split that one. The negative issues that were previous high-fliers continued to lag: "bitter," "divisive" and "elitist/elitism" all had scant mentions. And "electability," once an issue everyone focused on, was hardly mentioned last week.

Also of note: The Obama camp has been trying to attach McCain to President Bush whenever it can. While not a hot-button word per se, we are tracking that along with the others. There were only 205 mentions of that concept in seven days.

Methodology: Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 6,000 message boards.

And the Winner Is…

2008-06-10T17:39:00.006-04:00

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

If media coverage equals mindshare equals votes – or if any publicity really is good publicity – then the nomination was Obama’s all along, as he easily outpaced Clinton in mentions in both the traditional press (print, online and Web) and the social media (blogs and boards) during the primary period as a whole.

From Super Tuesday on February 5 through Friday, June 6, the last day on which Clinton was officially in the race, Obama received 756,281 total mentions in mainstream press sources, or 52% of all mentions for the two Democrats, compared with 700,704 mentions, or 48% of the total, for Clinton. (McCain, meanwhile, was mentioned just 476,885 times, having spent the past couple of months on the sidelines).

On the blogs and boards, Obama was mentioned 268,916 times, or 57% of the Democrat’s total, compared with Clinton’s 205,805, or 43%. (By comparison, McCain had 160,410).

Methodology: Mainstream press sources included 1,933,870 total mentions in 1,296,597 unique documents identified from more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources included 635,131 total mentions in 418,234 unique documents found on 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 6,000 message boards.

Obama’s Strengths? Faith and Fundraising

2008-06-10T17:35:00.004-04:00

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

As the election officially became a two-man race after Hillary Clinton withdrew her candidacy over the weekend, the two nominees continued turning their attention more pointedly toward one another – and the issues they believe will help them win in November. Based on data from the tracked social media in the past eight days, their efforts have resonated clearly on certain issues.

Obama dominated even more than usual on the issue of faith over the past eight days, with 2,423 mentions of his name occurring in close proximity* to faith-related terms, representing some 40% of his total issues-related coverage, compared to McCain’s 953 mentions, or 23% of his issues coverage.

A number of events drove the chatter, including Obama’s announcement that he and his family had cut ties with their Chicago church and his condemnation of a visiting priest’s sermon mocking Clinton, as well as efforts to court the Jewish vote with a speech to a pro-Israel group in which he outlined his proposed strategy for the Middle East, which includes being, as the now pro-Obama Clinton put it, “a good friend to Israel.”

On the issue of fundraising, Obama exceeded McCain in mentions by almost as much as he has in actual funds raised after he announced a ban on lobbyist and PAC donations to the Democratic National Committee, as part of his effort to portray McCain as beholden to special interests due to his ties with lobbyists. Obama received 814 mentions on the topic of fundraising, or about 14% of his overall issues coverage, compared with 399 mentions, or just 10%, for McCain. However, more isn’t always better, as the conviction of a one-time Obama fundraiser for fraud and money-laundering also helped boost his lead on the issue.

McCain held clear leads on the blogs and boards in terms of taxes and the economy, with both driven in part by his efforts to distance himself from the Bush economic policies while the Obama team continues to link them. McCain’s continued support for a gas-tax holiday for the summer also received coverage.

On the economy, McCain was mentioned 815 times on the blogs and boards during the tracked period, or 20% of his total coverage on all issues, compared to 558 mentions, or 9%, for Obama. On the tax issue, McCain saw 553 mentions, or 7% of his total issues coverage, while Obama received 439 mentions, or 7%.

*Close proximity is within about 50 words.

Methodology: Sources analyzed include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 6,000 message boards. Issues shown are the 10 most active domestic issues for the two candidates over the analyzed period. Percentages are based on the total number of mentions for those 10 issues.

Local Press Continue to Show only Slightest Tendency to Reflect their Readers' Voting Records

2008-06-04T18:14:00.002-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

The Obama camp has been in general-election campaign mode for some time, seeing Clinton as no longer a threat some weeks ago. Therefore that's where our media analysis is focused.

When looking at how much media attention has been given to Obama versus McCain over the past few weeks, it really has been no contest. While McCain has been slowly gaining in press mentions each week at Clinton's expense, Obama continues to garner nearly two-thirds of mentions in the head-to-head comparison.

That doesn't change when dividing the country along the now-quite-familiar Red-Blue battle lines. The recent presidential voting records of the states continue to show only the slightest correlation with the volume of local press coverage a candidate receives.

When comparing John McCain's and Barack Obama's media mentions over the period of May 28 to June 4, we see McCain received about 40% of press mentions in Red States -- those which have voted Republican in the past four presidential elections -- and 39% in Blue States -- those with the opposite recent historical record.

Michelle Obama Winning First Lady Race

2008-06-04T18:08:00.004-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

As the primaries end and the general election becomes the candidates' focus, not only does Barack Obama continue to top John McCain in media mentions in every way we slice the data, but his wife is also consistently way out ahead of McCain's wife.

Michelle Obama has received more mentions in both the mainstream press and social media than has Cindy McCain. Obama received 70% of mentions to McCain's 30%, comparing the two senators’ wives across the 2 million blogs and message boards analyzed by Dow Jones Insight between May 3 and June 2. The mainstream press was only slightly less skewed in coverage of the candidates' wives, with 67% of mentions for Obama and 33% for McCain.

But there have been days when the first-lady tally in the press has flipped. Thrice in the past month Cindy McCain passed Michelle Obama in press mentions -- a feat that Sen. McCain rarely achieves over his rival. Topics that pushed her past Obama included the McCains' dinner party with vice-presidential hopefuls, the release of Sen. McCain's medical records and discussion of her personal tax returns and family wealth. Michelle Obama saw a recent spike in mentions after she became the target in a Tennessee-GOP-backed online video.

Methodology: Sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts; more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites; 2 million of the most influential blogs; and more than 6,000 message boards.

If Blogs Really Lead the Way, We May be in for a Surprise…

2008-05-28T14:18:00.001-04:00

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

Over the past month or so, we’ve reported that Hillary Clinton’s mentions in the media have declined in tandem with the likelihood of her nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate. We’ve also seen in our media analysis a tendency for issues to take hold in the blogs and boards before they hit the mainstream media (the Wright controversy, for example). This week we took a look at the relative mentions of the three remaining candidates in both mainstream and social media, and we were quite surprised at what we found on the blogs and boards.

Two weeks ago (May 13-19), Clinton’s coverage on blogs and boards hit a low point as she received just a 25% share, with McCain finally rising to second place with 29% and Obama padding his already comfortable lead to 46%. But in the most recent seven-day period (May 20-26), Clinton jumped back into second place on the blogs and boards with 30%, compared to McCain who stayed level at 29%. At the same time, Obama’s lead shrank to 41% from 46%, so clearly the Clinton mentions came at the expense of Obama’s coverage.

Having dropped their discussion of Clinton to such low levels just a week earlier, social media appears to be ahead of the curve again: some protesting her continued presence in the race, others urging her to fight on, many railing against her remarks about Robert F. Kennedy and weighing the pros and cons of a possible vice presidency.

Methodology: Figures in the chart reflect mentions of the three candidates in postings on 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 6,000 message boards between March 25 and May 26. Figures in Table 1 reflect the same mentions for the most recent four weeks only.

…While Mainstream Press Coverage Shows More a Predictable Trend

2008-05-28T14:17:00.000-04:00

Meanwhile, Clinton’s coverage in the mainstream press has shrunk slowly in the weeks since the May 5 primaries. In the most recent seven-day period (May 20-26), Clinton’s share of all mentions fell 2 percentage points to 32%, while McCain gained two percentage points to 27%, and Obama slipped by one point to 41%.

Methodology: Figures in Chart 2 reflect mentions of the three candidates in 6,000 mainstream publications analyzed by Dow Jones Insight between March 25 and May 26. Figures in Table 2 reflect the same mentions for the most recent four weeks only.

Red State/Blue State Issues Coverage Similar But Shows Some Key Differences

2008-05-28T14:16:00.007-04:00

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

With all the talk in the 2004 election about the differing concerns and electorates of Red States vs. Blue States, or those considered to be solidly democratic or republican states, Dow Jones Insight took a look at how the coverage by mainstream media in those states differed on some of the more controversial domestic “wedge” issues. (“Wedge” issues being social or political issues, often of a divisive or otherwise controversial nature, that split apart, or create a "wedge," in the support base of a political group.) While the results showed that the coverage had more in common than was different – on the issue of faith in particular – there were a few key areas where coverage levels between the two groups varied, in expected ways.

Blue States had more coverage about the environment (20% of total coverage for all candidates on the five wedge issues vs 18% in the Red States press) and on same-sex marriage (3% of total coverage on the issues vs 2% in the Red States press). Red States, meanwhile, had higher coverage on immigration (13% of all wedge issue coverage in Red vs 11% in Blue) and abortion (6% vs 5%). Faith was virtually equal, with Red States at 61% and Blue States at 60% on high volumes relative to the other issues.

The most noticeable differences overall involved McCain, who had higher coverage on immigration in the Red States press (20% of his total coverage on the five issues in Red States) than in Blue States (18% of his issues-related coverage), and higher coverage on same-sex marriage in Blue States (4% of all McCain coverage on the five issues) than in Red (3%), a small percentage overall but representing a disparity of 33%.

* Blue States are defined as those that were carried by the Democrats in all four of the most recent presidential elections: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. Red States are defined as those that were carried by the GOP in all four of the most recent presidential elections: Alaska, Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.

Methodology: Figures in Chart 3 reflect mentions of the three candidates in close proximity (about 50 words) to terms related to the five tracked issues occurring in newspapers, Web sites, and television and radio broadcasts originating in the states listed for each group. Note that not all 50 U.S. states are included in the two groups.

It's all there in black and white -- Clinton Tallies Drop Dramatically

2008-05-19T15:08:00.009-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff
A low point in press coverage for Hillary Clinton came on Friday May 16.

That day marked one of the lowest tallies in headline coverage for her in quite a while. Her name only made it to the top of 67 articles found in the more than 6,000 mainstream publications analyzed by Dow Jones Insight. That day’s data also showed that John McCain passed her in headline coverage for the first time in months, with 174 articles mentioning him in the headline.

The gap between Clinton and Obama in headline counts also became dramatic Friday -- Obama had 322 articles with his name in a large font. Not since March 21 (when Obama was getting headlines because of his passport records being breached) was the gap so large between him and Clinton in headline mentions.

And it isn't just headline writers who are focusing less on Clinton as her presidential goal continues to fade. The total number of raw mentions of the three candidates in the mainstream media also shows Clinton slipping out of the picture. During the period of Thursday to Monday, May 15-19, Obama has clearly opened a gap with Clinton in journalist mindshare. Obama had 8,203 mentions in that period to Clinton’s 5,537. During the previous Thursday to Monday, the two were nearly evenly matched in raw mentions.
Methodology: Total media coverage includes analysis of more than 6,000 publications. The concept of “mentions” is a tally of individual occurrences of the candidate’s name within the body of the article.

Handwriting on the Wall for Clinton?

2008-05-13T13:35:00.000-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff
We don’t know if it’s on the wall, but it’s on the Dow Jones Insight Discovery Chart for Hillary Clinton (below). Over the past two days, the most common newly discovered terms occurring in close proximity* to Clinton’s name are quite telling, to say the least.

Press mentions of “once-imposing lead,” “big problem” and “worst thing” probably say it all, but several of the less-obvious terms listed in the chart also indicate it may finally be over for Clinton’s presidential run: as Obama added four “more endorsements,” including two from “Virgin Islands” superdelegates who had previously endorsed Clinton, he exceed Clinton in the superdelegate count for the first time. Meanwhile, Obama strategist “David Axelrod” very clearly turned his campaign’s attention toward McCain, though Clinton strategist “Howard Wolfson” vowed to continue on.

* “Close proximity” is defined as within about 50 words.

Smaller Field Not Yet Helping McCain’s Coverage

2008-05-13T13:26:00.000-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

With most now conceding that the presidential election has become a two-horse race, we thought we’d see if the election coverage was beginning to reflect the new reality. One would expect that McCain’s share, which had been low in comparison to the battling Democrats in our previous analyses, would improve in relation to Obama’s, with Obama and McCain focusing more directly on one another. However, that assumption has proved wrong, at least so far.

From May 1 to May 5 – the five days leading up to the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, when Clinton’s chances to win the nomination looked stronger – McCain had 18,265 mentions in all tracked media versus 32,822 for Obama. That translated into a 36% share for McCain versus 64% for Obama (when considering those articles in which one or the other, or both, were mentioned). From May 8 to May 12 – the most recent five-day period since the primaries – McCain has received 13,496 mentions to Obama’s 23,337, for a share of 37%, narrowing the gap by just a single percentage point.

McCain did a slightly better job narrowing the gap when considering headline mentions only, though his overall share of headline coverage was lower than it was for all press mentions. Before the primaries, McCain had 6,660 headline mentions in all tracked sources, or 23% of the total, versus 22,457, or 77%, for Obama. Post-primaries, McCain raised his share to 26%, or 5,061, compared with 14,492, or 74% for Obama, for a three-percentage-point improvement.

Still, the results lead us to wonder if the McCain team either doesn’t think it’s quite over for Hillary or just hasn’t pushed hard against their remaining opponent. Either way, they’re going to have to work harder to get their candidate a competitive share of coverage.

Methodology: Sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts; more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites; 2 million of the most influential blogs; and more than 6,000 message boards.

Blogs Ahead of the Curve Again?

2008-05-13T13:18:00.002-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff
Since the May 5 primaries, McCain has received a slightly more competitive share of coverage versus Obama in blogs than he has in all tracked media. With Clinton still a factor (May 1-5), McCain had 2,987 mentions in blogs, or 36% of the total McCain/Obama coverage, versus 5,383 mentions, or 64% of the total, for Obama, matching his share of mentions in all media. But in the most recent five days post-primary (May 8-12), McCain had 2,101 mentions in blogs, or 38%, versus 3,491, or 62%, for Obama.

Either way, McCain has gotten a bit closer to his fair share in the blogs than in the mainstream press.

Methodology: Reflects Obama and McCain mentions from 2 million of the most influential blogs.

Some Surprises on Global Issues

2008-05-13T13:09:00.012-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff
Now that the primary battles are coming to an end, the candidates likely will begin to focus more of their attention on the crucial issues that will be faced by the next president rather than the more tangential matters they’ve highlighted recently to cut down their opponents. How have they fared recently on some key global issues?

Over the past month, Obama has largely owned the “terrorism” issue in the tracked mainstream press sources, for better and for worse. (“Owned” in this context means his name occurred in close proximity* to specific terms associated with the issue.) His coverage was driven in part by articles referencing his pastor’s comments, the McCain-fueled controversy over Hamas’s endorsement of him and his comments that he would meet with Iran, Cuba and North Korea if he were elected (which also drove him to be the candidate most closely associated with North Korea). Clinton led the way on Iran with her controversial comments about “obliterating” Iran should it attack Israel. McCain, despite being the most in favor of the war in Iraq, was actually the least associated of the three candidates with the issue of Iraq over the past month.

* “Close proximity” is defined as within about 50 words

’Elitist’ is so last week. 'Electability' is what it’s all about now

2008-04-30T15:19:00.006-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

The pejorative-sounding “elitist” has been thrown around for years by the GOP when knocking down the Democrats: John Kerry was one. Hillary Clinton too. Obama had the label tagged to him several times in the past 12 months. But after the kerfuffle in which Obama in early April made his now well-discussed comments about small town residents being bitter, the moniker was tied more decidedly to him. During the period of April 11 to 15, it seemed to be the only thing being discussed. But buzzwords can have short lives. The somewhat contrived word "electability" burst on April 17 as Clinton was forced to admit during the last debate before the Pennsylvania primary that her Democratic rival could beat McCain. By April 19 it seems “elitist” was all but forgotten, with “electability” being the word of the day again the day after the Pennsylvania primary.

Note: Sources in this analysis include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts; more than 13,000 current awareness news Web sites; 2 million of the most influential bloggers; and more than 6,000 message boards.

McCain Coverage Flat Lines

2008-04-30T15:18:00.005-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

McCain's strategists, frustrated with the extreme media attention on the Democratic race, said in early April they would push hard for the entire month to get the candidate back on the front page. Their four-week road show seems to have accomplished little, as Dow Jones Insight's analysis shows the raw number of mentions of McCain in all media virtually flat since mid-March. It shows an average of 27,000 mentions of his name each week (out of about 5 million documents analyzed per week in the mainstream and social media.) That flat line is not much different when splitting out social media from mainstream media.

Note: Sources in this analysis include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts; more than 13,000 current awareness news Web sites; 2 million of the most influential bloggers; and more than 6,000 message boards.

Faithfully Talking about Obama

2008-04-30T15:17:00.006-04:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff
The question of faith – who has enough or too much of it – has become a dominant issue for Obama in the mainstream media. That’s even more the case in the often-polarized blogosphere, but the allure of faith, driven by Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, seemed to impact the press more this week than bloggers, according to analysis of data gathered in Dow Jones Insight.

For the past 90 days the issue of faith has been attached more to Obama than it has to Clinton and McCain in the mainstream media (26% of all mentions of Obama contained some reference to the concept of faith, while only 21% each of McCain’s and Clinton’s did).

With everyone’s attention this week again focused on Wright, the press’s coverage of faith as a percentage of all issues covered went from 23% (549,000 candidate-faith mentions versus 2.43 million total candidate-issue mentions) over the past 90 days to 26% in the last 7 days. Obama’s percentage of faith mentions increased from 26% to 33%, while Clinton’s went up 4 percentage points to 25% and McCain’s went down 3 percentage points this week to 18%.

Summary Table 1: Mainstream Media Coverage - ‘Faith” by Candidate

Those in blogs and boards seemed to obsess about it less, though, during the past 7 days. Faith was mentioned with Obama 47% of the time to Clinton’s 29% and McCain’s 30%. This is down from the last 90 days, in which 52% of all issues being discussed with Obama had some mention of faith (to McCain’s 38% and Clinton’s 36%).

Summary Table 2: Blog and Board Coverage - ‘Faith” by Candidate

Note: Sources in this analysis include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts; more than 13,000 current awareness news Web sites; 2 million of the most influential bloggers; and more than 6,000 message boards.

Pennsylvania Coverage Race Too Close To Call

2008-04-16T15:01:00.002-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

Like the race for votes, the race for press coverage in Pennsylvania ahead of next Tuesday’s primary remains tight, but in the most recent two-week period, the coverage advantage has reverted back to Clinton. While Obama had pulled ahead in our last review, since April 1 Clinton received more mentions in the Pennsylvania press (3,033) than Obama (2,920), giving her 51% of all Democratic mentions to Obama’s 49%.

Methodology: Pennsylvania publications analyzed include 146 print and Web sites of mainstream media (excluding blogs).

Experience is Out, Change is In…

2008-04-16T15:00:00.002-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

On April 6, the Clinton campaign announced the demotion of its chief strategist, Mark Penn, over a conflict of interest in his role as private lobbyist for a free-trade deal that Clinton opposes. Prior to his departure, Penn had been the key proponent of the campaign’s strategy to emphasize Clinton’s experience, amid criticism from those who believed that such a focus was sharply at odds with an electorate clamoring for change.

We took a look at Clinton’s coverage in the mainstream media on the issues of “experience” and “change” over the past month to see if there is evidence of a shift in messaging from “during Penn” to “after Penn,” and it looks like there is.

With Penn at the helm from mid-March to early April, “experience” and “change” each had a 36% share of voice of the four tracked issues. But after his demotion, “change” increased to a 41% share, while “experience” dropped sharply to just 20%.

Methodology: “Close proximity” is defined as within about 50 words. Sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts.

…But Bitterness Wins the Day

2008-04-16T14:59:00.002-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

The candidates espouse hope, but in the media, the campaign’s negative aspects have tended to prevail. With the recent dust-up over Obama’s comments about the “bitter” working class, the term “bitter” has surged past “change,” generating 3,058 mentions in the global mainstream and social media since April 1, versus 2,841 for “change,” and become the campaign buzzword of the month. Both Clinton and McCain have called Obama’s remarks “elitist” (1,920 mentions), while Clinton has also labeled them “divisive” (573). “Hope” continues to hang in there, with 1,563 mentions.

Methodology: Sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts; more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites; 2 million of the most influential blogs; and more than 6,000 message boards.

McCain Not Minding the Gap

2008-04-16T14:58:00.002-04:00

Dow Jones Insight Staff

In our last post, we said we’d report back on whether the McCain campaign team was able to close the gap between McCain’s coverage and that of the battling Democrats with the help of a series of themed appearances throughout April. Two weeks into the effort, the answer is: not really. McCain remains a distant third when analyzing mainstream and social media on a global basis.

For all of March, mentions of McCain had represented 23% of all mentions of the three candidates, compared with Obama’s 41% and Clinton’s 37%. For the first two weeks of April, McCain’s share of mentions inched up just a percentage point, to 24%, while Obama and Clinton had 38% apiece.*

*Totals may not add up to 100% due to rounding.

Did Blogs Lead the Way on Wright Controversy?

2008-04-03T14:03:00.000-04:00

Pati Carson
Dow Jones Insight Staff

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright controversy was on the rise at the time of our last post, helping drive Barack Obama’s overall coverage higher. But what has happened since?

In both blogs and newspapers, Obama’s coverage bump was quite pronounced during the week of the 17th. But as the charts below demonstrate, the increase in coverage on blogs came days earlier than the increase in newspapers (with peaks on the 18th and 19th for blogs, compared with the 19th through 21st for newspapers), it was far steeper, and it dropped off far more quickly, perhaps confirming what some have said – that the mainstream media was slow to pick up this story.

Note that these two charts use different scales. In terms of overall volumes, newspaper excerpts mentioning Obama exceeded the number of mentions from the tracked blogs, with newspapers topping out at 3,305 on the 21st, and blog mentions reaching 1,988 on the 18th and 1,989 on the 19th.

Methodology: Sources in the analysis for Chart 1 include 56,972 unique posts from among 2 million of the most influential blogs, dated between March 1 and March 31. Sources in the analysis for Chart 2 include approximately 5,650 English-language newspapers and their related Web sites. The total number of documents analyzed for Chart 2 equals 162,357 from March 1 to March 31, 2008.

Obama Ahead of Clinton in Economy-Related Blog Posts

2008-04-03T14:02:00.000-04:00

Pati Carson
Dow Jones Insight Staff

Another topic where blog chatter about the Democratic candidates seemed to exceed, if not precede, mainstream media coverage was the economy.

On the blogs, Obama’s name was mentioned in close proximity to words associated with the economy 1,228 times during March, far more often than Hillary Clinton’s 772. But in newspapers, the two candidates’ association with economic issues was nearly equal, with 4,823 for Obama and 4,751 for Clinton. (The respective totals are represented by the two bars in each chart marked “Barack Obama” and “Hillary Clinton.”)

When considering headlines only – those cases in which one or the other of the candidates’ names was mentioned in a headline and in close proximity to economic terminology – Obama’s lead in blogs was even greater (853 for Obama to 267 for Clinton), while in newspapers the two were again quite close (3,694 vs 3,457). The disparity in blog headlines would seem to indicate that Obama was the intended focus of more posts, whether the context of those posts was positive or negative (and since this is the blogosphere, there were plenty of both).

The two candidates’ coverage in the analyzed period reflects speeches outlining their own economic plans, criticism of their rival’s plan, and questions about their position on NAFTA. Obama’s blog coverage was also bolstered by the many postings of his speech on race, which included several economic references, and comments about his speech linking the war in Iraq to U.S. economic problems.

Methodology: “Close proximity” is defined as within about 50 words. Sources in the analysis for Chart 3 include 3,135 unique posts from among 2 million of the most influential blogs, dated between March 1 and March 31. Sources in the analysis for Chart 4 include approximately 5,650 English-language newspapers and their related Web sites.

McCain Team Looks to Boost Press Coverage in April

2008-04-03T14:01:00.000-04:00

Pati Carson
Dow Jones Insight Staff

The Web site Politico reported recently that the presumed Republican candidate's campaign team plans to step up efforts to keep McCain in the news in April, with a “Service to America” tour at the beginning of the month followed by specific themes in each week the rest of the month. While McCain has benefited by being somewhat on the sidelines as the Democrats duke it out, too little coverage could also have a downside. We’ll report back at mid-month on how the effort is going in terms of raising McCain’s overall coverage. For now, he remains a distant third when analyzing both mainstream and social media on a global basis.

Methodology: The total number of unique documents in the above analysis is 383,293. Sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts; more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites; 2 million of the most influential blogs; and more than 6,000 message boards.

Dems Flip-Flop in Pennsylvania Coverage Race

2008-04-03T14:00:00.002-04:00

Pati Carson
Dow Jones Insight Staff

In our previous post about the battle for coverage in the Pennsylvania press, we reported that Clinton was maintaining a small but definite edge in total number of mentions, but that has not been the case in the two weeks since.

With the exception of the days surrounding her swing through the Philadelphia area on the 25th – when she made a widely covered speech about the mortgage crisis, said that she “misspoke” about landing under sniper fire in Bosnia, and said Reverend Wright “wouldn’t have been my pastor” – the Pennsylvania coverage race has either shown large Obama leads (at the height of the Wright controversy during the week of the 18th), small Obama leads (around the 29th when he toured the state with, and was endorsed by, U.S. Senator Bob Casey) or been dead even.

As far as the total number of excerpts (each mention of a candidate's name) in the Pennsylvania press, from March 18-31 there were 2,772 total mentions of “Barack Obama” (or 41% of all mentions), 2,623 mentions of "Hillary Clinton" (39% of the total) and 1,302 mentions (or 19%) of “John McCain.” This reverses the figures from our previous post, which had Clinton at 41% and Obama at 39%.

Methodology: Pennsylvania publications analyzed include 146 print and Web sites of mainstream media (excluding blogs).

Controversies Bolster Negative Language in Election Coverage

2008-03-19T15:30:00.008-04:00

Pati Carson
Dow Jones Insight Staff

Controversy, not policy, drove much of the election coverage for the Democrats over the past week and a half, as a number of presidential supporters made news in ways that affected the candidates themselves.

Clinton supporters Eliot Spitzer and Geraldine Ferraro found themselves in the spotlight for unexpected reasons, while Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power, were the subject of plenty of controversy for the senator.

In total, Clinton was mentioned in proximity to “Geraldine Ferraro” or “Ferraro” a total of 4,597 times during the analyzed period, in proximity to “Eliot Spitzer” or “Spitzer” 2,550 times, and near “Samantha Power” 1,465 times.

Obama, meanwhile, received 4,388 mentions in proximity to “Geraldine Ferraro” or “Ferraro,” and he was mentioned 3,183 times in proximity to “Rev Jeremiah Wright,” “Jeremiah Wright” or “Wright.” He was also mentioned 1,342 times near “Samantha Power.”

These assorted flaps contributed to a marked increase in negativity of mainstream press coverage, based on our review of the automated favorability analysis in Dow Jones Insight. Breaking the coverage down into two equal segments since our last favorability analysis, the system considered 83,528 press documents and found 30,406 of them to contain either favorable or unfavorable language dominating in reference to a particular candidate.

Looking only at non-neutral coverage, we found that:

March 7-12: Obama’s coverage was positive 24% of the time, up from 21% in the preceding weeklast period analyzed, while Clinton dropped to 13% from 21% and McCain fell to 20% from 24%. During this period, Obama’s advisor referred to Clinton as a “monster,” Ferraro made racially controversial remarks about Obama, and Spitzer was named in a prostitution scandal. All three resigned. Clinton’s coverage seems to have taken the bigger hit overall though, as Clinton was the target of one comment, the source-by-association-of another, and lost a super-delegate.

March 13-18: Obama’s positive coverage fell sharply to 9%, while Clinton’s slipped a bit further to 10% and McCain’s dropped to 12%. During this period, Obama’s association with his pastor was questioned by some, and all three candidates engaged in a war of words over Iraq.

Methodology: Favorability analysis is of English-language documents only and was generated by software-based analysis which has been shown to be 80% accurate in similar corpora. Favorable and unfavorable ratings are assigned based on the words found in close proximity to a candidate's name. All neutral documents were excluded. The remaining 30,406 documents are those with discernible favorability. The source set excludes social media and press releases and includes global English language newspapers, magazines, broadcast transcripts and newswires.

Clinton Still Leads in Pennsylvania Newspaper Coverage

2008-03-19T14:40:00.014-04:00

Pati Carson
Dow Jones Insight Staff

In Pennsylvania, the press continued to show a tendency to talk about Clinton more than the other two candidates. By looking at the total number of excerpts (each mention of a candidate's name), we see that since our last count there were 1,530 mentions of "Hillary Clinton," compared with 1,455 mentions of "Barack Obama" and 766 for "John McCain."

Despite a decreasing percentage of positive coverage for all candidates, Clinton has gained an advantage as the percentage of documents rated as positive fell dramatically for Obama, from 10% on March 18, from 27% on March 12. Positives slipped to 17% from 21% for Clinton, and 20% from 31% for McCain.

March 7-12, 2008

March 13 - 18, 2008

Press Analysis Methodology: Total media coverage includes analysis of more than 6,000 publications. Pennsylvania publications analyzed includes 146 print and Web sites of mainstream media (excluding blogs). Articles were found in the following: Print and Web versions of: Centre Daily Times, Herald Standard, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Reading Eagle and The Philadelphia Inquirer; print versions of: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and The Morning Call; and Web sites of: ABC 4, CBS3 Philadelphia, FlipSide, NBC 10, NewsMax.com, Observer-Reporter, Our Town, Phillyburbs.com (Philadelphia), Pittsburgh Channel, Public Opinion (Chambersburg, Pa.), Ridgway Record, The Allentown Morning Call, The Citizen's Voice, The Daily Review & Sunday Review, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Times Leader, The Times-Tribune, WJAC TV, York Daily Record, York Sunday News Online and York Weekly Record.

Automated Favorability Methodology: This analysis is of English-language documents only and was generated by software-based analysis which has been shown to be 80% accurate in similar corpora. Favorable and unfavorable ratings are assigned based on the words found in close proximity to a candidate's name. All neutral documents were excluded.

Clinton Wins War of Words (by Volume) on Iraq

2008-03-19T13:35:00.004-04:00

Pati Carson

Dow Jones Insight Staff

The war in Iraq was a significant factor in this week’s election coverage. McCain, the candidate who most strongly supports the U.S. presence there, was in Baghdad on a congressional visit ahead of the fifth anniversary of the conflict, but still he did not receive the highest number of mentions on this topic. McCain was discussed in connection with Iraq 573 times, but Clinton was mentioned more often (607 times), as she used a speech in Washington Monday to slam both McCain and Obama (423 mentions) on Iraq.

Pennsylvania Papers Show Leaning toward Clinton

2008-03-10T12:49:00.017-04:00

By Glenn Fannick

Dow Jones Insight staff

Following Obama's victory in the Wyoming caucuses on Saturday, the mainstream press coverage on Sunday and Monday showed a tendency to talk more about Obama than about Clinton and McCain. In our survey of more than 6,000 publications for Sunday and Monday, we see 3,506 mentions of Obama, to 3,341 mentions of Clinton, to 2,070 for McCain.

However, in Pennsylvania, the largest yet-to-be-contested primary state, the press still showed a tendency to talk about Clinton more. By looking at the total excerpts (each mention of a candidate's name), we see that there were 149 mentions of "Hillary Clinton", to 131 mentions of "Barack Obama", to 73 for John McCain.

Interesting then, that the press in Pennsylvania -- a state which watchers say could go for Clinton -- seems to be slightly favoring Clinton in how many times they mentioned her name over Obama's.

Methodology: Total media coverage includes analysis of more than 6,000 publications. Pennsylvania publications analyzed includes 146 print and Web sites of mainstream media (excluding blogs). Articles were found in the following: Print and Web versions of: Centre Daily Times, Herald Standard, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Reading Eagle and The Philadelphia Inquirer; print versions of: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and The Morning Call; and Web sites of: ABC 4, CBS3 Philadelphia, FlipSide, NBC 10, NewsMax.com, Observer-Reporter, Our Town, Phillyburbs.com (Philadelphia), Pittsburgh Channel, Public Opinion (Chambersburg, Pa.), Ridgway Record, The Allentown Morning Call, The Citizen's Voice, The Daily Review & Sunday Review, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Times Leader, The Times-Tribune, WJAC TV, York Daily Record, York Sunday News Online and York Weekly Record.

Language Describing Candidates Moves Negative then More Positive

2008-03-06T13:18:00.014-05:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight staff

The mainstream media's coverage of the U.S. presidential campaign has inched toward negativity during the past 2 1/2 weeks then swung back toward more positive language after mini-Tuesday.

This 2 1/2-week period started the week before Clinton appeared on Saturday Night Live, spoofing the media's lack of gumption in investigating Obama.

This mini analysis was arrived at by consulting the automated favorability analysis in Dow Jones Insight. The system considered 65,374 press documents and found 26,435 of them to contain either favorable or unfavorable language dominating in reference to a candidate.

Comparitively, across all coverage that was not neutral, we found:

Week 1: Feb 17. to Feb. 23, Obama's coverage was 24% to Clinton's 22% and McCain's 21%.

Week 2: Feb. 24 to Mar. 1, the one after SNL and before mini-Tuesday, coverage was overall more unfavorable, with Obama's positive coverage at 16%, Clinton's at 14% and McCain's at 13%.

Then this (partial) week, Mar. 2 to Mar. 6, including the coverage of the days right before the Ohio-Texas primaries and the immediate aftermath, we see more favorable language emerging. Clinton and Obama were evenly getting 21% favorable language with McCain and his nomination-clinching week moving past them to 24%.

Methodology: This analysis is of English-language documents only and was generated by software-based analysis which has been shown to be 80% accurate in similar corpora. Favorable and unfavorable ratings are assigned based on the words found in close proximity to a candidate's name. All neutral documents were excluded. The remaining 26,435 documents are those with discernible favorability. The source set excludes social media and press releases and includes global English language newspapers, magazines, broadcast transcripts and newswires.

Economy Gathers Leading Spot for all Candidates

2008-03-04T16:57:00.017-05:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight staff

Domestic issue coverage, across mainstream and social media and in proximity to the five remaining candidates, continues to show differences.

Biggest one to note: Health care remains big for the Democrats (24% of all mentions) and small for the GOP (9%). The economy is No. 1 for everyone.

The difference in domestic issue coverage between Obama and Clinton is slight, with the concept of "terrorism" and "health care" being the only places where there is noticeable difference. Obama gets more mentions in close proximity to terrorism to Clinton's edge in health care. But the volumes change when you consider the McCain, Huckabee and Paul.

Terrorism continues to be McCain's issue, second only to the economy. Think Huckabee? Think immigration (26% of his coverage to 9% for the next closest candidate).

Methodology: "Close proximity" is defined as about 50 words. The total number of documents for this analysis equals 29,570 from Feb. 26 to March 3, 2008. Sources in this analysis include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts; more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites; 2 million of the most influential blogs; and more than 6,000 message boards.

NAFTA Pops as 'New' Thing to Discuss on Campaign Trail

2008-03-04T16:18:00.012-05:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight staff

As mini-Tuesday approached there wasn't too much new that was being discussed on the campaign trail. But two concepts seemed to poke their heads above the rest of the noise -- NAFTA and religion. Looking to Dow Jones Insight's discovery technology that finds and counts previously untracked terms, we see today that "NAFTA" and related terms ("Canadian officials", etc.) far and away were the latest issue to gain some traction.

Religion (or, perhaps more accurately, fear-mongering discussions around it) also emerged with discussion around Barack Obama's middle name ("Hussein") and talk of support from Louis Farrakhan, seemingly moving the discussion.

Methodology: The total number of documents analyzed equals 2,946 on March 3, 2008. The number of mentions exceeds the number of documents as many documents include more than one mention of a candidate's name. Sources in this analysis include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts; more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites; 2 million of the most influential blogs; and more than 6,000 message boards.

'Change' is still in the air for Obama

2008-03-04T15:44:00.016-05:00

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight staff

Each of the presidential campaigns works hard at branding its candidate. For some time now the concept of "change" has lead the charge as being the word most coveted -- at least by Democrats.

During the past 30 days, the word "change" was found in the context of Omaba 51,776 times to Clinton's 44,046 times.

Clinton is using "experience" to redirect people away from Obama's "change". Clinton has the lead, albeit by a thinner margin, with 31,407 mentions to Obama's 25,025.

The concept of "progess" has not really taken off for either candidate. It was mentioned only 2,527 times for Clinton to Obama's 2,448.

McCain had many fewer mentions, likely because the GOP race has been essentially over for a while, so he has gotten less coverage overall. Therefore, instead of comparing McCain to the Democrats we can look at the word that stuck to him the most. We see "change" here too, perhaps surprisingly, leading over "experience" with 19,818 mentions to 14,964. "Hope" was mentioned 9,810 times and "progress" a scant 1,698.

We might see "hope" increase a bit around McCain in the days going forward as he used the term multiple times in the speech he gave Tuesday night after gaining enough votes to secure the GOP nomination.

Methodology: The total number of documents analyzed equals 19,014 in the period Feb. 3 to March 3, 2008. The number of mentions exceeds the number of documents as many documents include more than one mention of a candidate's name. "Close proximity" is about 50 words from the candidate's name. Sources in this analysis include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts; more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites; 2 million of the most influential blogs; and more than 6,000 message boards.

Super Tuesday + Not-So-Super Economy = Soaring Press Coverage for Presidential Hopefuls

2008-02-22T13:54:00.009-05:00

By Pati Carson
-- Dow Jones Insight staff
Coverage of all candidates surged in January and February as the economy and financial markets had their troubles and the presidential primary season got under way, with coverage peaking in the days leading up to “Super Tuesday” on February 5.

In late 2007, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama vied to position themselves as the candidate most opposed to the war in Iraq, while John McCain, the candidate who most strongly supports the war, actually drew far less coverage on the topic. But after President Bush’s annual State of the Union speech on January 28 proclaiming that “the surge is working,” Obama and Clinton clearly moved away from the topic, and McCain emerged as the candidate most closely associated with Iraq.

As the U.S. economy more or less hummed along in the latter half of 2007, the presidential candidates spent little time discussing it, focusing instead on more contentious issues like Iraq and immigration.
But when the subprime crisis and falling housing prices sparked fears of recession and the financial markets took significant hits in January and February, the candidates all had something to say, especially about Fed rate cuts and tax rebates, and coverage spiked. Governor Huckabee, the only state official among the four mainstream candidates, drew the least coverage.

While we all know the news from the polls is that Barack Obama is on a roll and has taken over the lead in the delegate count, a more subtle switch has also occurred since around Super Tuesday. Obama is leading over Hillary Clinton since then in the total number of media mentions (the individual occurrences of the person's name). Before Super Tuesday, Clinton was most always ahead of Obama. While the number of documents in which each gets mentioned is about the same (essentially, you can't write about one without at least mentioning the other), the number of mentions within those documents has switched. Have the members of the press shifted their collective mindset? Are they subconsciously jumping on the Barack bandwagon?

Which one is not like the others..?

Of the five presidential hopefuls, Ron Paul is by far the least “establishment” – not only does he believe in smaller government, but he’s running a smaller campaign. With less funding, he has focused on generating grassroots support, using the Internet as his chief method of getting the word out. The other four mainstream candidates receive a far higher proportion of their overall article mentions from the mainstream press, but the majority of Paul’s coverage comes from blogs and message boards.