How the American media is following the economic slowdown

Project for excellence in Journalism have been tracking the American media's coverage of the economic slowdown,particularly tracking the coverage against the movements in the economy.

The study found that

the connection between media coverage and economic events has often been uneven. Sometimes, coverage has lagged months behind economic activity, when the storyline was dependent on government data. Other times, coverage has tracked events erratically, as with housing and inflation. But when the story is easier to tell, as in the case of gas prices, coverage has been closely tied to what is actually occurring in the marketplace.

Strangely the study found that

The economy has been a bigger story in older media—print, the three network evening newscasts and traditional news radio—and a noticeably smaller one in the newer—the more opinion-oriented platforms of cable TV and talk radio.

and in America in the period from Jan 2007 to June 2008,it overtook the Iraq war in popularity although the Presidential campaign leads by a long way