1998 MAP NEWS ANALYSIS

First, I hesitate to post this to the news service, shortly following an
item titled "US TINKY STINK MAKES BRITISH WEEK." But the work is done, so
here goes:

65% of the 11,700 news items posted were United States items. Of that 65%
two thirds were identified in the subject line of the item as belonging to
a specific state. We try to show all items that are national in scope, in
other words, not specific to a state, as US items. When the event of the
item is a state or local event, we use the state code to identify the state.

However, since our editors do not always call the item as it should be,
this is not as accurate a figure as the data below shows. My estimate is
that it is in the ball park, no more than 5% off on the count, plus or minus.

Below are the percents of the state identified items, followed by the raw
numbers.

36.3% California 1856
10.3% Texas 527
05.0% Oregon 255
04.8% Wisconsin 245
04.8% Washington 243
04.4% Illinois 225
04.0% New York 206
03.7% Massachusetts 188
02.2% Florida 110
01.8% Colorado 90
01.6% Pennsylvania 83
01.6% Iowa 84
01.6% Arizona 80
01.5% Nevada 77
01.3% Virginia 65
01.2% District Of Columbia 60
01.1% Maryland 56
01.1% Connecticut 57
01.0% New Jersey 49
01.0% Kentucky 53
00.9% Oklahoma 44
00.8% Ohio 41
00.8% Indiana 43
00.7% North Carolina 35
00.7% Minnesota 36
00.6% Utah 30
00.6% Michigan 30
00.5% Alaska 27

States with less than 0.05% of by state identified percents, with their
item count, follow:

Alabama 6, American Samoa 6, Arkansas 5, Delaware 5, Georgia 25, Hawaii 22,
Idaho 8, Kansas 7, Louisiana 15, Maine 20, Mississippi 5, Missouri 20,
Montana 2, Nebraska 6, New Hampshire 5, New Mexico 2, North Dakota 4,
Puerto Rico 3, Rhode Island 5, South Carolina 11, South Dakota 5, Tennessee
13, Vermont 3, Virgin Islands 2, West Virginia 6,Wyoming 2.

We invite you to assist us in increasing the numbers for the under
represented states. Guidance on newshawking is at:

http://www.mapinc.org/hawk.htm

And you will find both a list of over 400 newspapers complete with links to
their websites, and links to similar lists on other sites, at:

http://www.mapinc.org/media.htm

Non-U.S Coverage:

35% of the 11,700 some items posted in 1998 were not about the United States.

Note, however, that this does not mean that the items were not about the
United States relations with the other countries. The large majority of the
items from the countries south of the U.S. border in the Americas existed
only because of the U.S. actions towards those countries as a result of
U.S. drug policies, for example.

The following are countries with shares of 1% or larger of the non-U.S. items.

26% United Kingdom 1072
25% Canada 1027
18% Australia 742
08.3% Ireland 343
05.6% Mexico 230
03.9% Colombia 163
01.2% New Zealand 49
01.1% The Netherlands 45
01.1% Switzerland 45
01.1% France 46

Countries with less than 1% of total followed by item count.

Afghanistan 5, Africa 6, Argentina 2, Austria 2, Bahamas 1, Barbados 1,
Belgium 4, Belize 1, Bolivia 14, Brazil 15, Bulgaria 1, Burma 11, Caribbean
4, Cayman Islands 1, Chile 3, China 10, Costa Rica 2, Croatia 1, Cuba 2,
Cyprus 1, Czech Republic 3, Denmark 1, Dominican Republic 3, Ecuador 3,
Egypt 2, El Salvador 1, Europe 19, European Union 5, Finland 1, Germany 35,
Greece 11, Greenland 1, Guatemala 3, Haiti 5, Honduras 4, Hong Kong 3,
India 2, Iran 6, Israel 1, Italy 8, Jamaica 8, Japan 9, Kazakhstan 1, Korea
1, Kyrgyzstan 1, Lebanon 5, Malaysia 3, Malta 1, Myanmar 1, Nepal 1,
Nicaragua 2, Nigeria 2, Norway 2, Pakistan 3, Panama 10, Paraguay 1, Peru
10, Philippines 3, Poland 1, Romania 3, Russia 12, Senegal 1, South Africa
12, St. Kitts 3, St. Lucia 1, St. Vincent 3, Suriname 1, Sweden 30,
Thailand 15, Trinidad 2, Turkey 2, Uzbekistan 1, Venezuela 4, Vietnam 7,
Yemen 2.

In 1998, for the first time, we started receiving translated items, some 50
in all. Excellent translations are very difficult and time consuming. We
thank the translators: Pat Dolan, John Yates, Olafur Brentmar, Hugo v.d.
Hoeven, Susanne Schardt, Peter Webster, and Boris Ryser.

In the second part of this analysis, we will look at the breakdown by
topics. I hope to accomplish the analysis within the next two weeks.

Richard Lake
Senior Editor; MAPnews, MAPnews-Digest and DrugNews-Digest
email: rlake@DrugSense.org
http://www.DrugSense.org/drugnews/
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