Sniper tale draws a crowd -- of media

     Last week was quite a shoot-em-up in the Demos' presidential race. And the press responded accordingly, according to figures released by the Project for Excellence in Journalism's study of last week's campaign coverage.

     As Tom Rosenstiel, PEJ director, put it in a Tuesday e-mail:

     "Democrats dominated election coverage by about a six-to-one margin over Republicans in a week when making headlines was not necessarily a good thing ... .

     "Hillary Clinton won the race for exposure last week (at 63%), in part because of the controversy over her statements — later acknowledged to be wrong — about encountering sniper fire during a 1996 trip to Bosnia. Her coverage level more than doubled over the previous week when she had lagged far behind Barack Obama who was forced to respond to Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s incendiary comments.

     "Last week, as the Wright furor subsided somewhat, Obama was a significant or dominant factor in 54% of election stories. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, registered at 24% of the campaign coverage last week, trailing well behind his Democratic rivals. That level was up from 17% the previous week but McCain’s overall coverage amounted to less than half of the attention generated by Clinton or Obama.

     "The findings in PEJ’s Campaign Coverage Index—which will appear weekly until the party nominees are selected—include:

     "The controversy over Clinton’s Bosnia sniper recollection was the largest component of campaign coverage last week, accounting for 14% of all the campaign stories.

     "Election coverage filled 34% of the newshole last week, marking the second lowest weekly coverage level since the Campaign Coverage Index started in January.

     "New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson figured in 4% of last week’s stories after James Carville compared him to Judas for endorsing Barack Obama."

     -- David House