Is the media's heavy focus on Washington “scandals” pushing positive economic developments to the wayside?

CNN correspondent Christine Romans observed that focus on Washington “scandals” may be knocking positive economic news off the agenda, claiming “now the economy is slowly healing, all the conversation is about controversies though.”

Romans isn't alone in her observation. On the May 29 edition of MSNBC Live, Talking Points Memo's Igor Bobic highlighted the fact that “scandal-mania” in Washington is taking all the oxygen out of positive economic developments, prompting host Thomas Roberts to note, “There really is this obsession we have in D.C. right now talking about the IRS or Benghazi or even the DOJ scandal, but we're not talking about where we're moving economically as a country, but it is in a positive direction.”

Indeed, media has been largely silent on economic gains, most recently demonstrated by an underreporting of the housing price surge.

On May 28, Standard & Poor's released its Case-Shiller index of home prices. The report showed that in March, housing prices rose at an annual rate above 10 percent, posting the largest gain in the housing market since April 2006.

This positive news, however, did not garner any significant attention from cable news networks. According to a Media Matters analysis, in the day following the release of the Case-Shiller report, Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN spent a total of nine minutes and 32 seconds discussing the surge in housing prices.