Journalism

A story that suddenly emerged from nowhere, the threat of a global influenza pandemic, sent the media into overdrive last week. The flu scare knocked a number of significant events out of the headlines and by week’s end, began to spawn a backlash.

Two hot button issues, torture and same-sex marriage, were the leading subjects sparking conversation online last week. 

The Project for Excellence in Journalism did not issue a News Index report this week, but the data is available.

In another week with a mixed news agenda, the media provided some cautiously optimistic assessments of the troubled economy and offered some strikingly different treatment of the tax day tea party protests.

The online community was focused on two subjects that received little attention in the mainstream press last week—the debate over gay marriage and the death of a man at the G20 Summit.

Coverage of the financial meltdown dropped to its lowest level in months last week as Somali pirates, a trip to Turkey, a deadly earthquake and a defiant missile launch dominated the news agenda. Is it a trend or an anomaly?

Bloggers and social media eschewed the economic crisis and European summitry last week to focus on a group of diverse topics ranging from journalism to political activism to environmentalism. Meanwhile the week’s most viewed YouTube video featured a trick shot from a basketball superstar.