Obama remains media favorite

Results from the Dow Jones Insight-2008 Presidential Election Media Pulse show that, even with the issues of faith and race set aside, Barack Obama continues to receive more media coverage than John McCain as the two candidates go head-to-head on hot-button issues such as the Middle East and the economy.

For the past week from July 14-21, Obama was mentioned 60,654 times in all tracked mainstream and social-media sources, for a 59 percent share, compared with McCain's 42,463 mentions, or 41 percent share. Excluding mentions occurring in the context of faith and race only dropped Obama's share two percentage points, to 57 percent.

In the same period, as Obama began his Middle East trip, he was mentioned in reference to Afghanistan 8,299 times, or 61 percent of all mentions of the two candidates, well above McCain's 5,355 mentions, or 39 percent. Despite McCain's strong criticism of Obama's stance on Iraq, Obama still remained ahead on the issues of Iraq, Israel and Iran in media coverage.

Media in Swing States Favoring McCain?

Despite Obama's heavy media attention, Dow Jones Insight finds that the media in the Swing States are opting to highlight McCain more frequently than their Red State and Blue State counterparts as these battleground states will be heavily watched in the coming months.

Broken down along the Red State/Blue State/Swing State divide, Dow Jones measured headline mentions to gauge what the press considers the most important parts of the election story each day. During the period July 14 - July 21, McCain drew his highest share of headline mentions from mainstream press in the Swing States, with a 38 percent share (or 3,070 mentions), compared to 36 percent in the Blue States and 34 percent in the Red States.

Fuel Prices, Jobs Cuts and Housing Slumps

Given the current state of the economy, Dow Jones Insight tracked several new issues playing key roles in the overall economic picture -- namely fuel prices, the housing market and the jobs situation. Despite the dire tone of the discussion around these topics in some corners of the media, it appears that on the whole the press and bloggers are talking about them in relation to the candidates somewhat less than expected.

Of the 24 key domestic and international issues currently tracked by Dow Jones Insight, only one of the new topics -- fuel prices -- cracked the top 10. The issue was mentioned in the context of the candidates 27,443 times in all tracked sources (mainstream and social media) during the period June 20 - July 20, making it the eighth-most-discussed issue. The topic of jobs ranked 11th, while the state of the housing market placed near the bottom of the list in the 21st spot.

The Top Ten Issues for the Presidential Race

1. Economy
2. Faith
3. Fundraising
4. Taxes
5. Energy
6. Terrorism
7. Afghanistan
8. Fuel Prices
9. Environment
10. Iran