Disaster torches the competition

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It was essentially a battle for second place among the ongoing journalistic narratives of 2007 as the California wildfires dominated coverage, claiming 38% of the total newshole, besting 30% for all media categories except newspapers and topping the 50% mark on television and cable. According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism coverage chart for the week of 10/21/07-10/26/07, the 2008 campaign received a bit more attention than the situation in Iraq, taking second place by a 9%-7% margin. No other story was able to break through for more than 3% of available space and time, and reporting on the US economy made it onto the top ten list with a miniscule 1% share. Coverage of a dangerous staph infection and AG nominee Michael Mukasey were the biggest to fall completely off the chart, but they were only at 3% and 2% anyway, so it wasn’t that big of a drop.