A Slow Start to the “Media Primary”

With Election Day nearly two years away, thus far there has been little media attention paid to the 2012 presidential race.

Indeed with no major Republican candidate formally announcing a run, coverage of the campaign accounted for less than 1% (0.6%) of the overall newshole in January 2011. And while it may not seem unusual to have negligible coverage of an election still 21 months away, at this point four years earlier, the 2008 presidential campaign was already a major newsmaker. By January 2007, more than a dozen candidates had already announced a bid for president and the campaign accounted for 5.1% of the newshole during the first four weeks of 2007 -- trailing only the Iraq war and the installation of the new Democratic-led Congress.