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.
for the week ending Sunday 6 March
- Gaddafi, father and son, still clinging to headlines
- Galliano’s and Charlie Sheen’s comments on camera, covered lots
- Nato’s airstrike on Afghan children, and the killing of Somalia peacekeepers, covered little
Covered lots
- Libya’s Gaddafi, father and son, still clinging to power, 894 articles
- Fashion designer John Galliano, fired by Christian Dior for anti-semitic comments, 157 articles
- Charlie Sheen, publicly insulting his employers, joining Twitter, and discussing his sex life, marital and drug problems with the media, 136 articles
- The London School of Economics (LSE), criticised for finanicial ties with Gaddafi, leading to their director’s resignation, 101 articles
Covered little
- The death of Frank Buckles at 110, the last US WW1 veteran, 13 articles
- Two former Argentine dictators in court, charged with kidnapping babies from political opponents between 1976-1983, 4 articles
- President Karzai rejecting Nato’s apology for killing Afghan children in an airstrike, 4 articles
- 53 African Union peacekeepers killed by Islamist militants in Somalia, 3 articles
Political ups and downs (top ten by number of articles)
- David Cameron: 579 articles (+7% on previous week)
- George Osborne: 213 articles (+99% on previous week)
- Nick Clegg: 170 articles (+36% on previous week)
- Tony Blair: 160 articles (-11% on previous week)
- Ed Miliband: 127 articles (+176% on previous week)
- William Hague: 120 articles (+264% on previous week)
- Jeremy Hunt: 107 articles (+189% on previous week)
- Vince Cable: 102 articles (+149% on previous week)
- Liam Fox: 100 articles (-9% on previous week)
- Michael Gove: 75 articles (+6% on previous week)
Celebrity vs serious
- Colin Firth, after winning Best Actor Oscar, 148 articles vs. the Welsh referendum on greater powers for the Welsh Assembly, 21 out of 22 council regions voting yes, 51 articles
- Natalie Portman, winning Best Actress Oscar and publicly denouncing designer Galliano, 140 articles vs. refugees amassing on the Tunisia/Libya border, 72 articles
- Ashley Cole, who accidently shot an intern with an air rifle, 118 articles vs. the assassination of the only Christian politician in the Pakistan Cabinet, 47 articles
- Lady Gaga, who threatened to sue a parlour for naming breast-milk ice cream after her, 94 articles vs. China supressing protests, by tightening regulation of foreign journalists and tracking planned rallies online, 37 articles
Who wrote a lot about…’BSkyB’
Martin Fletcher – 15 articles (The Times), Ben Fenton – 8 articles (Financial Times), Dan Sabbagh – 7 articles (The Guardian), Mark Sweney – 7 articles (The Guardian), Jason Beattie – 4 articles (The Mirror), Graham Hiscott – 4 articles (The Mirror), Louise Armistead – 4 articles (The Telegraph), Amanda Andrews – 3 articles (The Telegraph)
Long form journalism
- 4,765 words: ‘A boy named Abdul: Sierra Leone’s child inmates’ – John Carlin, The Independent, 5th March 2011
- 4,121 words: ‘The death of a housing ideal’ – Stephen Moss, The Guardian, 4th March 2011
- 2,894 words: ‘Rocking all over the war’ – Katie Glass, Sunday Times, 6th March 2011
More from the Media Standards Trust
The Media Standards Trust’s new site Churnalism.com – a public service for distinguishing journalism from churnalism – is now live
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