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

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

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.

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

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?

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.

Blogs Ahead of the Curve Again?

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.

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

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.

Faithfully Talking about Obama

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

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…

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

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

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.

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.

Dems Flip-Flop in Pennsylvania Coverage Race

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

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

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

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

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.

'Change' is still in the air for Obama

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.