From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone.

9.15 on a Sunday morning, a special edition of America's Newsroom.

It certainly is a historic day.

We are back on a very historic day as we're watching all this unfold.

There's protesters everywhere. Lots of excitement on a very historic day as we're watching all this unfold. Discussions. There's protesters everywhere.

Lots of excitement on this big historic day.

Every week, historic or otherwise, the Pew Research Center's project for Excellence in Journalism surveys news coverage across the media.

Last week, the health care bill was far and away the leading story.

And yet, despite the news media's devotion to the topic, a CBS news poll found that more than half of Americans say they still don't understand how health care reform will affect them.

Mark Jerkowitz is the Associate Director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

He says that while newspapers and networks devoted about a third of their space to the issue

and websites about 20 percent, it was cable and radio talk shows that owned the story.

In fact, they devoted a staggering 80 percent of their newshole to health care.

From day one, this story has very much been a talk show story.

The cable and radio talk shows have devoted the most time to it.

And that's different, for example, than the economy, which was actually a story that we found

was covered more in, like, network TV and newspapers.

Did the venue determine, to some some degree the nature of the coverage?

To some degree, that's true.

Any story that generates this much attention in cable and radio talk shows, which are highly

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