I know I’m supposed to be focusing on the headline to the PEJ’s Campaign Coverage Index (that last week “McCain makes as much news as Obama” “for the first time since this general election campaign began in early June”) but I’m sort of hung up on what that “news” consisted of — or, the top “campaign storylines of the week” (as a percentage of “campaign news hole”). The top three:
1) Campaigns play race card?
2) Campaign ads
3) Economy as an issue (as opposed to, I guess, economy as a tool for attacking one’s opponent in a campaign ad or some such?).
Special snaps for Cable TV, where “campaign 2008” was the top story and the runner-up was not “U.S. economy” or “gas prices” as it was for every other media but “Caylee Anthony, Missing Girl in Florida.” Same as last week!
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.