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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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…

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

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.

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.