Campaign, Iraq consume up news hole

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The 2008 presidential campaign took the top spot in the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s analysis of Q2 news coverage in the United states, eating up 9% of available time and space. Iraq remained a big story, however, with events accounting for 7%, policy debate for another 7% and homefront issues for still 2% more, amounting to 15% all-told (after rounding). Most of the top ten stories were of an ongoing nature. Exceptions were the Virginia Tech shootings, at 5%, and the 2% allocated to the Don Imus firing. Immigration was the #4 topic with 6%, and other top ten tales included Iran (2%), the fired US attorneys controversy (2%) and the strife in Palestine (1%). Four stories disappeared from the Q1 list, including the CIA leak/Plame case (3%); Anna Nicole Smith (2%), the new Democratic Congress (2%) and severe weather stories (2%).