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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.
For the week ending Sunday 1 May
- Royal Wedding outshines AV throughout the news
- Syria’s crackdown on protesters dominates international news
- Syrian funding to St Andrews University and Belgium’s burqa ban hardly covered
Covered lots
- The Royal Wedding, with Will and Kate tying the knot on Friday and the nation getting a holiday, 867 articles
- AV referendum, with nationwide voting on 5th May, 144 articles
- Anti-government protests in Syria, with 42 alleged deaths in Dera’a on Friday, 200 ruling Ba’ath members resigning, and foreign journalists banned from the country, 91 articles
Covered little
- A suspected suicide bomb attack in a Marrakesh cafe, killing 15 tourists and injuring 20 more, 13 articles
- Palestinian rival parties Fatah and Hamas announce they will form a unity government and hold general elections in a year, 10 articles
- Student Alfie Meadows, who was hospitalised after a head blow from a police truncheon during last year’s tuition fees protests, is charged for violent disorder, 7 articles
- St Andrews University’s funding from Syria stirs controversy ahead of royal wedding while Assad government cracks down on protesters, 6 articles
- Belgium bans the burqa, the second European country to do so, 1 article
Political ups and downs (top ten by number of articles)
- David Cameron: 315 articles (-52% on previous week)
- Nick Clegg: 150 articles (-47% on previous week)
- George Osborne: 112 articles (-16% on previous week)
- Gordon Brown: 101 articles (-26% on previous week)
- Tony Blair: 95 articles (-10% on previous week)
- Ed Miliband: 90 articles (-59% on previous week)
- William Hague: 80 articles (-21% on previous week)
- Vince Cable: 46 articles (-68% on previous week)
- Ed Balls: 39 articles (+63% on previous week)
- Michael Gove: 39 articles (+18% on previous week)
Celebrity vs serious
- Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie attending the royal wedding, 44 articles vs. leaked Guantánamo Prison files, detailing over 700 detainees since 2002, 40 articles
- Prince Harry’s girlfriend Chelsy Davy, royal wedding guest, 39 articles vs. Obama’s birth certificate published to silence conspiracy theorists, 37 articles
- Cheryl Cole, replacing her manager with Black Eyed Peas’ Will.I.Am and preparing for US X Factor, 35 articles vs. 450 Taliban prisoners escaping from a high-security prison through a tunnel, 23 articles
- Gwyneth Paltrow, saying the c-word in describing her grandmother during a TV interview, 21 articles vs. the death toll from tornadoes rising to 300 in southern US, 22 articles
Arab spring
- Libya and Colonel Gaddafi, 93 articles (-59% on previous week)
- Syria and President Bashar Al-Assad, 91 articles (+49% on previous week)
- Yemen and President Saleh, 18 articles (-40% on previous week)
- Gaza and Hamas, 18 articles (-26% on previous week)
- West Bank and President Abbas, 10 articles (+900% on previous week)
- Morocco and King Mohammed VI, 7 articles (+700% on previous week)
- Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu, 7 articles (+17% on previous week)
- Turkey and Prime Minster Erdoğan, 7 articles (+25% on previous week)
- Saudi Arabia and King Abdullah, 6 articles (+50% on previous week)
- Kuwait and Emir Al Sabah, 4 articles (0% on previous week)
- Bahrain and King Al Khalifa, 4 articles (-56% on previous week)
- Oman and Sultan Al Said, 3 articles (-40% on previous week)
- Jordan and King Abdullah, 3 articles (-25% on previous week)
- Iraq and Prime Minister Al Maliki, 3 articles (0% on previous week)
- Qatar and Emir Al Thani, 2 articles (+100% on previous week)
Who wrote a lot about…’Royal Wedding’
Gordon Rayner – 10 articles (Telegraph), Duncan Larcombe – 7 articles (The Sun), Martin Beckford – 7 articles (Telegraph), Richard Kay – 6 articles (MailOnline), Ann Gripper – 5 articles (The Mirror)
Long form journalism
- 4,387 words: ‘Nick Clegg interview: A year in the eye of the storm’ – Andrew Rawnsley, The Observer, 1st May 2011
- 3,740 words: ‘Whose children are we anyway?’ – Christine Toomey, Sunday Times, 1st May 2011
- 2,916 words: ‘British institutions: local government’ – Matthew Engel, Financial Times, 29th April 2011
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