Almost every single week, when the Project for Excellence in Journalism puts out its chart of the top stories, the big winner – indeed, the top five stories at least – make all five lists of each individual medium. But during the week of 8/30/10-9/3/10, Hurricane Earl’s jaunt up the east coast was #1 despite being completely absent on the newspaper top ten list.
Earl picked up 13% of the overall news hole, driven by coverage from network TV and online. No other story made it into double digits, with the economy and the 2010 elections each holding down a 9% share.
Cable continued to be the medium most fascinated with the elections, devoting 20% of its time to that ongoing saga; radio devoted 11% of its time to discussion of Israel/Palestine and was the only medium to focus on health care, giving that topic a respectable 7% of its coverage. Newspapers spread their coverage around, focusing most often on the elections, the economy and Iraq.
| Story | Overall | Newspaper | Online | NetTV | CATV | Radio |
| Hurricane Earl | 13% | x | 18% | 23% | 12% | 7% |
| Economy | 9% | 9% | 8% | 10% | 6% | 17% |
| 2010 elections | 9% | 10% | 3% | 2% | 20% | 9% |
| Iraq War | 8% | 9% | 6% | 18% | 9% | 3% |
| Discovery gunman | 5% | x | 6% | 5% | 10% | 6% |
| Israel-Palestine | 5% | 3% | 7% | 2% | 5% | 11% |
| Glenn Beck | 4% | x | x | 5% | 7% | 5% |
| Education | 3% | 7% | x | x | 4% | x |
| Chilean miners | 3% | 3% | 7% | x | x | x |
| Mariner rig fire | 3% | x | 5% | x | x | 3% |
| Afghanistan | x | 4% | 3% | x | x | x |
| China | x | 4% | x | x | x | x |
| Cyberspace | x | 3% | x | x | x | x |
| Immigration | x | 3% | x | x | x | x |
| NY mosque controversy | x | x | 3% | x | x | x |
| Obama administration | x | x | x | 2% | 2% | 5% |
| Emmy awards | x | x | x | 2% | x | x |
| Gun control | x | x | x | 2% | x | x |
| Congressional scandals | x | x | x | x | 3% | x |
| Health care | x | x | x | x | x | 7% |
| Source: Project for Excellence in Journalism |
Have an opinion on this article? Post your comment below.
Email to a friend
Print version
