America made it through the last full week of April without any of the kind of earth-shattering events that focus every camera, mic, pen and keyboard in one direction. The result, as recorded by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, was a return of focus on Iraq and the 2008 presidential campaign. The former story was fueled by an Iraq funding bill passed by the Democratic Congress containing the veto magnet of a withdrawal date. The latter story was fueled in part by the first Democratic candidate debate in South Carolina. And as PEJ noted in its lead comment, even fake news got into the act via a contentious interview between Republican candidate John McCain (R-AZ) and "The Daily Show's" John Stewart, an event which managed to touch on both stories at once. The VA Tech tradedy had residual coverage after consuming an incredible 51% of the total media news hole the previous week, and continued interest in the cable and radio communities even pushed the Imus story back into the overall top ten. As usual, there was a top 10 weather story. The biggest story to drop off the list concerned the US Supreme Court's ruling on certain abortion procedures.

Top ten lists

Story	Overall	Newspr	Online	NetTV	CATV	Radio
Iraq policy	15%	9%	15%	20%	17%	16%
2008 campaign	10%	7%	10%	11%	13%	13%
VA Tech shootings	7%	10%	6%	5%	8%	3%
Iraq events	5%	6%	11%	6%	2%	4%
Yeltsin dies	4%	9%	6%	3%	x	1%
Tillman/Lynch	3%	x	6%	5%	4%	x
US economic numbers	2%	2%	1%	3%	3%	x
TX tornadoes	2%	x	3%	3%	x	x
US attorney firings	2%	x	x	x	3%	2%
Imus	1%	x	x	x	3%	5%
Halberstam dies	x	3%	x	x	x	x
French elections	x	2%	2%	2%	x	x
White House scandals	x	1%	x	x	x	x
Global warming	x	1%	x	x	x	3%
Israel/Palestine	x	x	2%	x	x	x
Iraq homefront	x	x	x	2%	x	x
Baldwin voice mail	x	x	x	x	3%	x
Immigration	x	x	x	x	2%	x
Iran	x	x	x	x	x	2%
Saudi Arabia militants	x	x	x	x	x	1%

Source: Project for Excellence in Journalism