Tuesday 30 November 2010

Blanket coverage: There's no news like snow news


There's nothing like a bit of snow to provoke a blizzard of 'Brrr..Brrr..Britain' type stories in the UK press, as shown by Journalisted which says the white stuff got the most coverage in the week ending Sunday 28 November.

Snow, with school, work and road closures as it began to cover the UK, generated 229 articles; more student protests, including school pupils marching on Whitehall, wrecking a police van and constrained by kettling, 187 articles; North Korea and South Korea, with the North firing across the western sea border killing two civilians and two soldiers last week, 174 articles.

Covered little, according to Journalisted, was the stampede at a water festival in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, killing over 350 people, 21 articles; workers holding austerity protests in Portugal, said to be the first general strike action in over two decades, 16 articles; three teenage boys adrift in the Pacific Ocean for 50 days, rescued off Fiji, 6 articles; first successful libel action brought against the Press Complaints Commission, with its chair apologising and paying damages, 2 articles.

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