6 Politicians That the Media Loves

Bangalore: Who are the politicians that drive maximum media coverage? An analysis by The Hoot named the political leaders who got the most media coverage. The analysis said that quality and quantity of political coverage are determined by degree of controversy surrounding a state or a leader. The Hoot took into account the coverage among five English news dailies namely, The Times of India, The Indian Express, Hindustan Times, The Hindu and The Economic Times in the time period of April and May, 2012. Here is the list of politicians that the media loves:

Mamata Banerjee:

Mamata Banerjee received 33.7 percent of all political coverage in all five newspapers. Trinamool Congress’ reported row before the polls and BJP in-fighting involving Narendra Modi were widely reported in two months. It was noted that in all mainstream dailies, Banerjee got the most coverage, though she was in the news for all the wrong reasons in the month of April. Out of a total of 492 stories from West Bengal, 16 percent was on Mamata Banerjee (79 stories).

Mamata was also in the news when she completed a year as the West Bengal Chief Minister on May 13th. Further, the West Bengal state education board under Mamata’s command tried to amend its educational syllabus. Then there were reports that Marxist leaders would be taken out from the West Bengal Board history books. She was in media scrutiny for various reasons like restriction of freedom of expression, 4 high profile rape cases, Maoist controversy and 60 infant deaths in West Bengal hospitals. She was soon trending on Twitter too and her cartoon went viral on Facebook attracting further controversies.