The News Media Wonder Whether Iran is Next

THE NEWS MEDIA WONDER WHETHER IRAN IS NEXT
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
Last week, musings about confrontation with Teheran exploded into media consciousness as a serious war scare, according to the PEJ News Interest Index for February 11-16. This burst of media attention propelled the American-Iranian war of words into the third biggest story of the week (at 7%) and the top story on the front page of newspapers (at 8%), according to the Index. Only the debate over Iraq (11%) and the densely populated 2008 presidential race (9%) edged out Iran. And if the coverage of one element of the Iraq story -- the whereabouts of radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr who was reported to be in Iran- -- were added in, Iran would have been the second biggest story of the week at 9%. But the media are hardly a monolith. In cable, the top story of the week remained Anna Nicole Smith, a story that was not even in the top five in any other sector.
http://www.journalism.org/node/4207