http://journalism.org/node/8534<snip>
So it was for Rep. Dennis Kucinich last week as he took to the House floor November 6 to introduce a measure to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney for having “manipulated the intelligence process” leading to the Iraq War.
After the measure passed the House and moved to the Judiciary Committee, over moves by the Democratic leadership to kill it, the cheers from the left side of the talk dial could hardly be contained – along with some encouraging jeers from the right.
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Outside the talk world, Kucinich’s move was barely a blip on the larger news-scape. The story did not come close to cracking the top-10 stories in PEJ’s overall News Coverage Index. But the story provided all the right elements for the talk universe, a divisive political issue with a well-known political figure and easy to define positions. The Kucinich impeachment effort ended up as the No. 2 story of the week according to PEJ’s Talk Show Index for November 4 -9 . It made up 8% of the talk time. And it was even bigger in talk radio, where it was the top story with 20% of the total airtime.
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Top Ten Stories in the broader News Coverage Index
1. Pakistan - 17%
2. 2008 Campaign - 15%
3. Events in Iraq - 3%
4. Gas/Oil Prices - 3%
5. O.J. Simpson - 3%
6. U.S. Economy - 3%
7. Product Recalls - 2%
8. Immigration - 2%
9. Global Warming - 2%
10. U.S. Domestic Terrorism - 2%