Last week, our tongue-in-cheek headline for the weekly Project for Excellence in Journalism 4/8-13/07 news coverage chart was "All Imus, half the time," a reference to the seemingly wall-to-wall coverage given his story by the cable wing of America's journalism outlets. On the 4/15-20/07 chart, the entire universe went over 50% by one point in its coverage of the massacre at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg VA. Newspapers, which tend to spread coverage on their front pages, gave the story 27%, and on cable it went all the way to 76%. Needless to say, the story choked all others out, with the #2 overall item - the US attorney scandal - mustering a meager 6% overall. And only in the online world did any other story nose into double digits (two, Iran and the attorneys, managed 11% coverage there). Amazingly, the Imus story - which seems alive to us because it's also a trade story - was knocked clean off the overall chart and was almost shut-out completely, showing up only on his home turf, the radio chart, with 5%. Cable, with it's 24/7 hole, is the medium most prone to excess, and its 76% wall of VA Tech coverage supplanted a 48% wall of Imus, and even squeezed Anna Nicole off the list for one of the few times since her passing. The record overall coverage for a story thus far was the 34% devoted to the Iraq surge during the week of 1/7-12/07.
Top ten lists
|
Story
|
Overall
|
Newspr
|
Online
|
NetTV
|
CATV
|
Radio
|
|
VA Tech shootings
|
51%
|
27%
|
37%
|
62%
|
76%
|
50%
|
|
US attorney firings
|
6%
|
8%
|
11%
|
7%
|
3%
|
4%
|
|
Iraq events
|
5%
|
7%
|
11%
|
5%
|
2%
|
x
|
|
Iraq policy
|
3%
|
2%
|
6%
|
3%
|
3%
|
3%
|
|
Abortion
|
3%
|
3%
|
4%
|
3%
|
*
|
8%
|
|
Storms/severe weather
|
3%
|
2%
|
8%
|
4%
|
x
|
1%
|
|
2008 campaign
|
2%
|
5%
|
1%
|
1%
|
1%
|
x
|
|
NASA shooting
|
2%
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
6%
|
x
|
|
Afghanistan
|
1%
|
2%
|
x
|
1%
|
x
|
x
|
|
Baldwin voice mail
|
1%
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
2%
|
3%
|
|
Iraq homefront
|
x
|
2%
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
|
US economic numbers
|
x
|
2%
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
|
Corzine crash
|
x
|
x
|
2%
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
|
North Korea
|
x
|
x
|
1%
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
|
General Middle East
|
x
|
x
|
1%
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
|
Pet food recall
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
1%
|
x
|
x
|
|
Sudan/Dafur
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
*
|
x
|
1%
|
|
Immigration
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
*
|
x
|
|
Congress
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
*
|
x
|
|
Imus
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
5%
|
|
Supreme Court
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
1%
|
|
Wolfowitz/World Bank
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
1%
|
* = less than 0.5% coverage
Source: Project for Excellence in Journalism
