Journalisted Weekly: Phone hacking, Eurozone, Norway, Somalia and Stepping Hill Hospital

Journalisted is an independent, not-for-profit website built to make it easier for you, the public, to find out more about journalists and what they write about. It is run by the Media Standards Trust, a registered charity set up to foster high standards in news on behalf of the public, and funded by donations from charitable foundations. 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.

Phone hacking, Eurozone, Norway, Somalia, Stepping Hill Hospital and more

for the week ending Sunday 24 July

  • An unprecedented ‘covered lots’ section – the Journalisted team have rarely seen such a busy news week
  • Phone hacking, Eurozone crisis, Norway terror attacks, Somalia, Stepping Hill Hospital and the Space Shuttle Atlantis all covered lots
  • General Petraeus stepping down and four Kenyans winning the right to sue the UK government covered little

Covered lots

  • The phone hacking scandal continues to unfold, 1258 articles (including the Murdochs undergoing a select committee grilling, 346 articles, and David Cameron setting out the terms of the Leveson Inquiry, 89 articles)
  • The Eurozone crisis, 455 articles
  • Terror attacks in Norway, carried out by right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, claim over seventy lives, 168 articles
  • Famine in Somalia worsens despite increased foreign aid, with Britain giving £90m, 137 articles
  • The suspicious deaths of patients at Stepping Hill Hospital, Stockport, with a nurse charged with causing damage with intent to endanger life, 115 articles
  • The Space Shuttle Atlantis returns home to the Kennedy Space Centre for the last time, 79 articles
  • Singer Amy Winehouse, found dead at her Camden home on Saturday afternoon aged just 27, 107 articles
  • Artist Lucian Freud dies aged 88, 69 articles

Covered little

  • General Petraeus hands over command in Afghanistan to General John R. Allen, 3 articles
  • Four Kenyans, who claim they were tortured during Mau Mau uprisings, win the right to sue the UK government, 18 articles
  • The Princess Diana Memorial Fund to close after fourteen years, 3 articles

Political ups and downs (top ten by number of articles)

Celebrity vs serious

  • Zara Phillips, the Queen’s grand-daughter, who marries rugby player Mike Tindall this Saturday, 19 articles vs. Judge finds that undercover police officer Mark Kennedy acted unlawfully, 16 articles
  • Wendi Deng stands up for her husband, Rupert Murdoch, at the select committee, 104 articles vs. the UK hands over control of Helmand’s capital, Lashkar Gah, to Afghan forces, 48 articles
  • The Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding dress goes on display at Buckingham Palace, 35 articles vs. Prince Andrew steps down as the UK’s trade envoy, having been criticised over his links to a controversial businessmen, 27 articles

Arab spring (countries & current leaders)

Who wrote a lot about…’The Norway terror attacks’

Peter Beaumont – 6 articles (The Guardian/The Observer), Andrew Ward – 5 articles (Financial Times), Mark Townsend – 5 articles (The Guardian), Tim Lewis – 4 articles (WalesOnline), Roger Boyes – 4 articles (The Times), Tom Peterkin – 3 articles (Scotland on Sunday), Duncan Gardham – 3 articles (Daily Telegraph)

Long form journalism

Sign up to the campaign for a public inquiry into phone hacking at hackinginquiry.org
Visit the Media Standards Trust’s new site Churnalism.com – a public service for distinguishing journalism from churnalism
Churnalism.com ‘explore’ page is available for browsing press release sources alongside news outlets
The Media Standards Trust’s unofficial database of PCC complaints is available for browsing at www.complaints.pccwatch.co.uk

For the latest instalment of Tobias Grubbe, journalisted’s 18th century jobbing journalist, go to journalisted.com/tobias-grubbe

Leave a Reply