Romney's Storyline Improves, Santorum's Becomes More Mixed on Eve of Arizona and Michigan

After suffering his worst week yet in the news media two weeks ago, Mitt Romney began to see his narrative sharply improve on the eve of the Arizona and Michigan contests.

At the same time, the media narrative about Rick Santorum -- who had enjoyed the two best weeks in the press of any candidate studied so far -- became decidedly more mixed heading into the Feb 28 contests. These are among the latest findings of Campaign 2012 in the Media, a real time tracking of the press narrative of the race conducted by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The research, which combines traditional human research content analysis methods with algorithmic technology from the firm Crimson Hexagon, tracks the tone and volume of campaign coverage of each candidate across a wide swath of news media sources. The findings suggest that Santorum's surge, at least in the press narrative, may have ebbed as Romney has fought back.