Corporate news perennials AOL Time Warner, General Motors, Microsoft, Walt Disney Co. and Wal-Mart continued to dominate corporate news coverage during the first three weeks of
the Iraqi war. That, according to Delahaye Medialink, which ranked the 100 largest companies (based on revenue) by the total number of stories in both print and TV from March
19th, when the war began, to April 9th, when Coalition Forces began to enter Baghdad. Following is a breakdown of the top 10 companies. The study is based on an ongoing, yearly
analysis of more than 400,000 print and broadcast news stories.
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Number of Times Top U.S. Companies Were Mentioned In The News During The War In Iraq
|
||||
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Rank
|
Company
|
Print
|
TV
|
Total
|
| 1 | Walt Disney |
1,654
|
197
|
1,851
|
| 2 | Microsoft |
1,037
|
534
|
1,571
|
| 3 | AOL Time Warner |
1,139
|
359
|
1,498
|
| 4 | Wal-mart |
1,116
|
382
|
1,498
|
| 5 | General Motors |
1,120
|
270
|
1,390
|
| 6 | Intel |
581
|
736
|
1,317
|
| 7 | Enron |
1,058
|
240
|
1,298
|
| 8 | Merrill Lynch |
807
|
457
|
1,264
|
| 9 | Boeing |
762
|
224
|
986
|
| 10 | General Electric |
657
|
323
|
980
|
Both Disney and AOL Time Warner, two of the biggest media conglomerates, have been busy trying to get their financial houses back in order. Disney also got a lot of ink from
the Oscars, which aired March 23 on Disney-owned ABC, and was also in the news quite a bit as restrictions were placed on low-flying aircraft over both of Disney's theme parks due
to concerns about the war. Microsoft, meanwhile, is constantly greasing its marketing machine via the press while the Enron fallout is still being heavily covered. The rankings
include passing references to the companies as well as articles in which they were featured. Look for the rankings of these companies in what context they appeared --negative,
positive or neutral -- in an upcoming issue of PR NEWS.
Source: Delahaye Medialink