Police Clashes Spur Coverage of Wall Street Protests

By NATE SILVER
NYT

The Occupy Wall Street protests, by design, began with little in the way of concrete goals or strategy.

But the protests in Manhattan, now in their third week, and in other parts of the country, have found two ways to draw attention to their cause. First, keep at it. And second, wait for confrontations with the police.

In the early days of the protests, which began on Sept. 17, coverage was all but nonexistent in the mainstream news media. It has increased significantly in recent days, however, and is now beginning to rival that given to Tea Party protests in April and May 2009.

We can estimate the amount of media coverage given to the protests through the database NewsLibrary.com, a compendium of about 4,000 news outlets in the United States — mostly “traditional” sources like newspapers and television stations.

(More here.)