King seeks to benefit from hearings

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) is fundraising on the basis of his controversial hearings on Muslim radicalization in America, blasting out an email Friday boasting that the Pew Research Center found those hearings were the "#2 Religion Story of 2011."

The email linked to the Pew report -- which confirmed his boast -- and said, "For a single congressional hearing, the King event was a big story, filling 5% of the newshole -- the total space and time devoted to news coverage -- for the week of March 7-13, enough to make it the fourth-biggest story of the week."

But the Pew report also added some context to King coming in second to stories about religion in the presidential race: He faced slim competition. "Religion," the report said, "accounted for 0.7 percent of all mainstream media coverage studied in 2011, down from 2.0 percent in 2010." -- Tom Brune