The Year in News 2010

Aside from major events or running stories, PEJ also examines coverage from the perspective of general topic categories. How much coverage is given to such subjects as education, lifestyle or religion, taking all the events of the year into account? Among other things, this way of measuring stories also looks at how each story about an event might have been oriented. A story about the faltering economy in the end could be a pure economic story, it could be a political story, or it might be built around human interest or more.

When looked at from that perspective, several significant patterns emerged in 2010. The year’s biggest topic, at 12% of the overall newshole, was politics. Thanks to the much-covered 2010 midterms, attention to that subject more than doubled from the 5% it registered in 2009. Coverage of disasters also increased dramatically in 2010, to 8% from only 2% in 2009.

Conversely, coverage of medicine and health fell in 2010 to 6%. One year earlier, when the debate over health care reform was in full swing and the world was worrying about an emerging H1N1 flu pandemic, it had been the No. 2 topic (at 11%). Topics such as business (4%) and crime (4%) fell from their 2009 levels of 7% and 6% respectively.
Coverage of celebrities and entertainment also dropped to less than 1% after having accounted for 2% in 2009, the year that the death of pop icon Michael Jackson was a major story.

Several other topics that have a significant impact on American life generated modest coverage in 2010. The environment, education, immigration and issues surrounding race, gender and gay rights each accounted for 2% of the newshole in 2010. In each case, that coverage was very similar to the 2009 levels, with the exception of immigration, which was less than 1% in 2009.  

In 2010, only two topics—politics and foreign events that did not directly involve the U.S.—filled more than 10% of the newshole. That’s a less balanced media diet than in 2009, when five subjects ended up with double-digit coverage levels.