A Disaster and an Election Drive the News

Two stories combined to account for about half of the last week's overall news coverage, the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti and the political aftershocks from a Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts.

Filling 27% of the newshole, the situation in Haiti—from chaos on the streets to the expanding U.S. role—was the No. 1 story from January 18-24, according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. It was the leading subject on newspaper front pages (19%), online (30%) and in network television (35%), as measured in PEJ's weekly News Coverage Index, which examines coverage in the most relied on mainstream outlets.