The Shirley Sherrod Saga Was Cable News’ Most Important Story Last Week

by Steve Krakauer | 9:56 am, July 28th, 2010

» 12 comments

There’s no doubt that last week’s Shirley Sherrod controversy began as a new media story – started by Andrew Breitbart on BigGovernment.com.

But there is also no doubt which type of media drove it into the ground – cable news.

Take a look at this chart, from Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. It illustrates the Sherrod story in the media last week:

From the report:

The story accounted for 33% of the airtime studied, twice as much as the second-biggest story for the sector, the oil spill. During the last half of the week, from July 21-July 25, the story consumed 41% of the cable airtime, quickly overtaking developments in the oil rig disaster and a well-orchestrated rollout of the Washington Post’s series on the nation’s intelligence-gathering bureaucracy.

That’s an incredible chunk of time devoted to the story, which essentially came to a conclusion by Tuesday. Meanwhile, it only accounted for approximately 10% of online coverage. (For background on the outlets counted as “online,” here’s the full list.)

This doesn’t excuse a powerful force in the new media from starting the story, but it does shed more light on how Shirley Sherrod became the media star she has become. While Bob Schieffer knocked new media Sunday, it was the cable news outlets that turned the minor story into a major one.

In total, however, Pew found economic issues were the most covered stories of last week. The crisis (“the merits of extending unemployment insurance benefits and Wall Street regulatory reform”) accounted for 17% of all news coverage, while Sherrod was #2 at 14%.

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The Real Royal King

Indeed, it was. That’s not all that surprising. What is amazing is how the related stories, the Breitbart implosion, the FOX News’ mea culpas, the angst of the Breitbart and FOX News fans were all important and well-covered stories in their own right.

FOX NEWS AND BREITBART
WHERE LYING’S AN ART!
http://apostrophejones.com Apostrophe jones

What about Robert Gibbs parasailing in Russia ? … Lohan in the Big House ?… Anything with Snooki ?
Bootleghaircut

“In total, however, Pew found economic issues were the most covered stories of last week. The crisis (“the merits of extending unemployment insurance benefits and Wall Street regulatory reform”) accounted for 17% of all news coverage, while Sherrod was #2 at 14%.”

Wel you cwertainly wouldn’t know that economic issues were the most covered with all the conservativve bleating and kvetching last week!!!

But hey the pattern is when a major piece of legilsation is about to pass the right wing bloggshpere churns up the bullshit on some side issue.

What happens? Conservatives get distracted and Obama gets his bill passed.

How many times have we seen THAT happen??? Hmmmmmmm
Pablo

This isn’t surprising, given that CNN went to an “All Shirley All The Time” format.
notsofast

#! on cable news? That can’t be right. I just read Newsweek’s article on this and they specifically said only FOX covered this story and Newsweek certainly would never make things up would it?
Moderate

“it was the cable news outlets that turned the minor story into a major one.”

When fear of Glenn Beck causes Obama to throw another of his appointees under the bus, it is a major story.
Jimmy Joe Johnson

While it has been stated that foxnews.com ran the story on the 19th, it should be noted that MSNBC owned and operated website, newsvive.com, also ran several user submitted stories about the “Shirley Sherrod story” on the same day.

http://riggsmom1.newsvine.com/_news/2010/07/19/4707437-caught-on-tape-obama-official-discriminates-against-white-farmer-the-fox-nation

http://secaa23.newsvine.com/_news/2010/07/19/4709527-usda-official-and-naacp-award-recipient-resigns-over-racist-conduct

http://jade-log.newsvine.com/_news/2010/07/19/4710067-breitbart-has-proof-the-naacp-is-racist-acorn-ii

http://jaburnham.newsvine.com/_news/2010/07/19/4709611-naacp-renounce-your-racist-ties
ImNotBlue

The Real Royal King says:
July 28, 2010 at 9:59 am

Still waiting for you to clarify those “FNC lies.” You know, the one’s that didn’t happen. The one’s that didn’t get Ms. Sherrod fired. And the ones that you keep insisting upon, hoping perhaps someone believes you.

What lies were those again?
The Real Royal King

Well, just this morning, the lies continued with Gretchen van Karlson telling us that Pfizer is making a Viagra suitable for children, working up all the indignation she could whilst omitting the portion of the story that said that the medication was for other medicinal purposes than Erectile Dysfunction in 8 year old boys. That was seven (7) hours ago, so there’s likely twenty-one (21) lies since.

FOX NEWS AND BREITBART
WHERE LYING’S AN ART!
Rogue-Comic

I RRK’S new “talking point” gimmick.

Moderate said:
“it was the cable news outlets that turned the minor story into a major one.”

When fear of Glenn Beck causes Obama to throw another of his appointees under the bus, it is a major story.

Why does the White House give a shit about Fox News or Glenn Beck anyway, seriously? Cable news is a niche marketplace that targets viewers AKA voters that already chose a political ideology, and you’d have to do a Superman time-reversing flight around the Earth to seriously challenge that audience’s beliefs.

The network and newspaper part of that little chart “should have been” what the White House “should have been” worried about since that audience continues to be informed independent voters who care, and the story looked like merely an afterthought in the real key media demographics going by the chart.

Pure pre-ejaculate political correctness personified.
Rogue-Comic

Rogue-Comic said:
I RRK’S new “talking point” gimmick..

Insert “heart” as the verb in my comment about the RRK talking points gimmick. If you insert () before and after “heart,” somehow your verb will be deleted by this site.
Rogue-Comic

And another thing, why would the left waste a definite kill-shot against Brietbart in favor of another jab at Fox News?