The Army Base Massacre Dominates the Week

The November 5 assault at the Fort Hood Army post—and questions about the suspected shooter's background and motives—commanded the media agenda last week, quickly eclipsing other major stories in the news. For the full week of November 2-8, the attack that killed 13 and left dozens more wounded, allegedly carried out by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, accounted for 15% of the newshole, according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. But in the three days from November 5-8, the saga accounted for more than one-third (34%) of the coverage monitored in PEJ's News Coverage Index.