For the third straight week, Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism found the traditional media paying
increased attention to Occupy Wall Street. Further, since Pew categorizes coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests within economic news, it also found that Occupy Wall Street s increasing the overall media focus on the economy:
The U.S. economy topped the news last week, powered in large part by increasing attention to the Occupy Wall Street protests.
At the same time, the narrative about the protests became decidedly partisan and political.
From October 10-16, the economy filled 24% of the newshole, up slightly from 22% the previous week, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. This also marked the third consecutive week in which coverage of the protests grew, according to PEJ’s weekly News Coverage Index, which tracks the media agenda, or the attention paid to different topics in the news. Last week, the Occupy Wall Street storyline increased to 9% of the overall newshole compared with 7% the previous week and 2% the week before that.
This is a big success for Occupy Wall Street. It has experienced a consistent rise as a percentage of traditional media coverage during its first four weeks, from less than one percent, then up to two percent, next up to seven percent, and now reaching nine percent. Pew also notes that the total amount of coverage given to Occupy Wall Street now compares favorably to traditional media coverage of the launch of the tea party:
While it is complicated to compare different news events several years apart, the Tea Party protests began with little media notice in February 2009. But they filled 7% of the newshole studied the week they went national with widespread protests on April 15 of that year.
Occupy Wall Street has gotten itself noticed. Now, it faces the challenge of continuing to influence the national dialogue over a longer time frame.