Journalism

Was it a tease, a trial balloon, or a trivial matter? New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision to shed his GOP label sure had the media buzzing last week. And while dramatic events inside Iraq generated substantial coverage, the policy debate over the war has slipped onto the press back burner in recent weeks.

The impassioned debate on the talk airwaves wouldn’t go away last week as the once-imperiled immigration bill appeared to get a new life. And that had some conservative hosts putting former GOP allies on their enemies list. The talkers were also more interested in HBO’s gang wars than the Hamas-Fatah battles.

It took Presidential intervention, but the changing fortunes of the controversial immigration reform legislation was the leading story last week. Still, U.S. domestic politics were almost overshadowed violence in the Mideast. And why did the ending of a cable series make the nightly news?

The race for the White House was the most popular talk show story last week and Paris Hilton’s unscheduled release from jail was also a hot topic. But the big news may have been the Senate’s failure to pass an immigration measure, an event that seemed like a victory for a number of talk hosts.

The biggest stories last week were driven by Republican and Democratic presidential debates, the apparent defeat of the compromise immigration bill, and an increasing war of words between the United States and Russia. But the tale of one celebrity’s interrupted incarceration generated a lot of late-week coverage.

The cable and radio talk shows were buzzing about Hillary Clinton, Fred Thompson, and even Michelle Obama last week. And they were still on the offensive on the new immigration bill. But for all its many angles, the saga of the young tuberculosis-infected lawyer attracted only tepid interest.

There was a grim milestone for U.S. troops in Iraq and one potential GOP presidential hopeful moved closer to making it official. But the biggest news last week was an international medical mystery with more plot twists than a novel and potentially serious implications for the nation’s security in an era of daunting man-made and natural threats.