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Dow Jones Insight -- 2008 Presidential Election Media Pulse: 'Once-imposing lead' and 'Big problem' Shadow Clinton in the Media as Candidates Tackle Global Issues
Writing on the Wall for Clinton?
Dow Jones Insight showed that over the past two days, the most common newly discovered terms occurring in close proximity to Clinton's name included "once-imposing lead," "big problem" and "worst thing."
These phrases could suggest that the race may finally be over for Clinton's presidential run. Other newly discovered terms give the same indication though in a less obvious way, as the media covers the implications for Clinton of Obama adding four more endorsements, including two from
Grab-bag for Global Issues — Obama Takes Terrorism, Clinton Takes Iraq
Now that the primary battles are nearing an end, the candidates can begin to focus more of their attention on the crucial issues that will be faced by the next president rather than some of the more tangential matters they've highlighted recently to cut down their opponents. How have they fared so far on some key global issues?
The analysis shows that over the past month, Obama has largely owned the "terrorism" issue in the tracked mainstream press sources, for better and for worse, with 1,168 excerpts on the issue compared to Clinton's 645 and McCain's 434. His coverage was driven in part by articles referencing his pastor's comments, the McCain-fuelled controversy over Hamas's endorsement of him and comments that he would meet with
Smaller Field Not Yet Helping McCain's Coverage
With almost everyone conceding that the presidential election has become a two-horse race, Dow Jones Insight took a look at the election coverage to see if the media was beginning to reflect the new reality. One would expect that McCain's share, which had been low in comparison to the battling Democrats in Dow Jones Insight previous analyses, would improve in relation to Obama's with Obama and McCain focusing more directly on one another. However, that assumption has proved wrong, as the results thus far would indicate that the McCain team either doesn't think it's quite over for Hillary or just hasn't yet pushed hard against their remaining opponent. Either way, they're going to have to work harder to get their candidate a competitive share of coverage.
— In the five days leading up to the Indiana and North Carolina primaries (May 1-5), when Clinton still had a perceived, if not quite mathematical, chance to win the nomination, McCain had 18,265 mentions in all tracked media versus 32,822 for Obama. — This represented a 36 percent share for McCain versus 64 percent for Obama (when considering those articles in which one or the other, or both, were mentioned). — In the most recent five-day period since the primaries (May 8-12), McCain received 13,496 mentions to Obama's 23,337, for a share of 37 percent, narrowing the gap by just a single percentage point. — McCain did a slightly better job closing the gap when considering headline mentions only, though his overall share of headline coverage was lower than it was for all press mentions. Before the primaries, McCain had 6,660 headline mentions in all tracked sources, or 23 percent of the total, versus 22,457, or 77 percent, for Obama. Post-primaries, McCain raised his share to 26 percent, or 5,061, compared with 14,492, or 74 percent for Obama.
The Dow Jones Insight — 2008 Presidential Election Media Pulse tracks four key areas of media coverage related to the election, as reported across traditional and social media sources, including:
— Coverage of key issues by party — Issue ownership by party — Coverage of policies by media type — Share of voice analysis - press coverage by each candidate
The Dow Jones Insight — 2008 Presidential Election Media Pulse provides a high-level view of a competitive media landscape and demonstrates how candidates and issues are covered in the media and how that coverage changes over time. Dow Jones Insight combines proven research methodologies, trusted content and advanced text-mining and visualization tools to deliver strategic qualitative and quantitative media measurement metrics. Organizations use the analysis to nurture their reputation, demonstrate the effectiveness of their communications strategies and achieve business objectives. The platform processes nearly a million articles, Web pages, blogs and message board posts per day.
The charts are available at http://dowjonesinsight.blogspot.com/ and can be reproduced in print and online media.
For further information about the Dow Jones Insight solutions or The Dow Jones Insight — 2008 Presidential Election Media Pulse, please contact
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