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Each week Journalisted produces a summary of the most covered news stories, most active journalists and those topics falling off the news agenda, using its database of UK journalists and news sources. From now on we’ll be cross-posting them on Journalism.co.uk.
for the week ending Sunday 5 December
- An avalanche of snow and a WikiLeaks flood deluged the news
- England’s World Cup bid failure generated anger at FIFA
- Attempted assassinations in Tehran, and a US school hostage-taking received little attention
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Covered lots
- WikiLeaks, which released 250,000 secret US diplomatic cables into the public domain, 851 articles
- More snow, with airports closing and Scotland worst affected, 699 articles
- England’s bid losing out in the voting for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, causing outrage and sparking critcism of FIFA, 577 articles
Covered little
- The 146th execution in Iran this year, with the hanging of a footballer’s mistress Shahla Jahed, 12 articles
- Suspected assassination attempts on two Iranian nuclear experts in Tehran, 6 articles
- The murder of Hermila García Quinones, one of a handful of women taking on chief police roles in Mexico’s drug war, 5 articles
- A high school hostage-taking in Wisconsin, with the teenage gunman taking only his own life, 4 articles
Political ups and downs (top ten by number of articles)
- David Cameron: 702 articles (+24% on previous week)
- George Osborne: 265 articles (+15% on previous week)
- Nick Clegg: 220 articles (+11% on previous week)
- Gordon Brown: 212 articles (+44% on previous week)
- Vince Cable: 171 articles (+44% on previous week)
- Ed Miliband: 142 articles (+22% on previous week)
- Tony Blair: 126 articles (+1% on previous week)
- Philip Hammond: 98 articles (+158% on previous week)
- William Hague: 94 articles (+25% on previous week)
- Andrew Lansley: 78 articles (+95% on previous week)
Celebrity vs serious
- Ann Widdecombe, in the week she finally left ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, 43 articles vs. former MP David Chaytor, facing imprisonment on admitting expenses fraud, 25 articles
- Cheryl Cole, who has been chosen to be a judge on America’s X Factor in £3 million deal, 98 articles vs. Haiti’s election, characterised as fraudulent and badly organised, 16 articles
- Angelina Jolie, premiering her new film ‘The Tourist’, 32 articles vs. a huge forest fire in northern Israel, killing 41 and prompting aid from foreign fire crews including Palestinians, 29 articles
Who wrote a lot about…’Putin’s Russia’
Luke Harding – 17 articles (The Guardian), Andrew Osborn – 10 articles (The Telegraph), Tony Halpin – 8 articles (The Times), Sam Wallace – 7 articles (The Independent), Tom Parfitt – 6 articles (The Guardian)
Long form journalism
- 3,612 words: ‘Seeing the wood for the trees’ – Ben Webster, The Times, 2nd December 2010
- 3,399 words: ‘Wiki’s world’ – Christina Lamb and Bob Tyrer, Sunday Times, 5th December 2010
- 3,318 words: ‘Who is Mr Justice Eady?’ – Ian Burrell, The Independent, 4th December 2010