AIG Drives Media Narrative

Last week, the media narrative for a complex economic crisis got much simpler. The coverage focused on one corporate villain and one angry public. With news of the AIG bonuses driving that narrative, the economic crisis generated its highest level of weekly coverage to date. From March 16-22, it filled 53% of the newshole according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. That not only marks a major increase over the previous week (35% of the newshole). It is the highest level of weekly coverage for any story other than the 2008 presidential campaign since PEJ started its News Coverage Index in January 2007. As further evidence of the week's lopsided news coverage, the No. 2 story, turmoil inside Pakistan, was all the way back at 3% of the newshole. The catalyst for last week's news agenda was the revelation that failing insurance giant AIG—which had received about $180 billion in bailout funds—was paying out $165 million in bonuses. As fallout spread from Capitol Hill to the Connecticut homes of AIG officials, the bonus story accounted for more than half the economic crisis coverage. And the overarching theme was outrage.