Media-watcher to create weekly news index

A research group said Thursday it is monitoring the output of nearly 50 U.S. news organizations to produce a weekly index of the topics receiving the most attention from TV, newspapers, the Internet and radio.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism, part of the Pew Research Center, said it would publish its News Coverage Index online at journalism.org each Tuesday, beginning next week.

Among the news organizations being monitored include the New York Times, CNN.com, Yahoo News, MSNBC.com, Google News, AOL News, the three main network morning and evening news shows, CNN, Fox and MSNBC cable news shows and radio news programs and talk shows.

Tom Rosenstiel, the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said the new index would be a companion to the Pew News Interest Index, a survey undertaken regularly that monitors what U.S. residents are following in the news.