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Mainstream Media 'Occupy Wall Street' Coverage Increases Sharply, But Still Relatively Low Priority
Media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement has increased sharply, though the protests are still not at the top of the news agenda.
A study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center showed that seven percent of media coverage from Oct. 3-9 was devoted to Occupy Wall Street. That's four times as much coverage as the movement received the week before, and Pew says it is also roughly the same amount of coverage as the Tea Party drew in its first weeks in 2009.
The uptick in coverage was especially evident on cable news, where coverage increased twelvefold. MSNBC has thrown itself wholeheartedly into tracking the movement, sending multiple anchors to Lower Manhattan for live coverage. Occupy Wall Street has also provided ample fodder for CNN and Fox News.
Even so, Occupy Wall Street remains a relatively low priority for the media (where it was the fourth-largest story for the week, behind the 2012 election, the economy and the death of Steve Jobs) and for the public at large. Just seven percent in the Pew survey said that the protests were their top story, as opposed to 27 percent who were most interested in the economy. Also, the study found a lower level of broader public interest in the movement than in the Tea Party.
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3 Comments so far
Show AllIf anyone remembers the anti-war protests that occurred before the invasion of Iraq, they'll remember that those massive 500,000 people protests received far, far less coverage than this OWStreet movement. In fact, the mere fact that broadcasters have covered OWS as much as they have, as opposed to their general outright censorship of stuff they are suppressing (like high level opposition to claims Iraq had WMD's in 2003) indicates that the establishment is supporting the awareness/growth of the OWS movement. It must serve some function that suits them.
"Whoever controls the media, controls the mind."
Jim Morrison
Local channel NY 1 has been covering OWS in a rather fair and unbiased way. We should thank them, because obviously somebody there stepped out of the corporate enabler role and his or her job may be endangered. That can be countered if there is evidence that people are interested and advertisers will be mollified.
http://www.ny1.com/content/the_call/the_call_blog/148919/the-call-blog--occupy-wall-street-protesters-asked-to-follow-park-rules