Health Care Debate Dominates News

Health care reform, an issue that has long simmered on the media back burner, finally exploded into the headlines last week, accounting for one-quarter of the overall coverage. Yet late in the week, the health care debate took a back seat to the arrest of a black professor that exposed the "third rail" of American society—race. Together, the two stories accounted for nearly 40% of the coverage from July 20-26. And in both cases, Barack Obama played a key role.