Coverage of the economy, headlined by President Obama's speech about deficit reduction and raising taxes on the wealthy, made up 23% of the news hole for major national media during the survey period of Sept. 19-25, making the economy the top story for the third week in a row.
That's according to Project for Excellence in Journalism's latest News Coverage Index, which tracks coverage in 52 media outlets over five sectors.
The presidential election came in as the second-most-covered story with 11% of the news hole. The main storyline was Texas Governor Rick Perry's widely panned debate performance Sept. 22.
The third biggest story (10%) was Palestine's bid for statehood at the UN and President Obama's veto threat.
Number four was the execution of Troy Davis (4%) despite the recantation of testimony by a number of witnesses. Tied with Davis at 4% of coverage was the looming government shutdown as the deadline for passage of another stopgap spending bill approached.
