Deadly Storms Top the News

A storm system that spawned the deadliest tornado in decades, killing more than 100 residents of Joplin Missouri, last week registered as the biggest weather story since the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism began monitoring the press.

From May 23-May 29, the Midwest tornado and subsequent storms accounted for 22% of the newshole as measured by PEJ’s weekly News Coverage Index. Previously the biggest weather week since PEJ began tracking news in January 2007 was September 1-7, 2008, when Hurricanes Hanna and Gustav combined to fill 20% of the newshole. Last week’s scenes of death and destruction were primarily conveyed to U.S. citizens on television news. The story accounted for nearly one-half (46%) of the network news airtime studied last week; it filled more than one-third (38%) on cable news. In a year of dramatic newsmaking events at home and abroad, the spring of 2011 has been marked by a series of violent storms ravaging the Midwest and South. Indeed, this makes the fifth time in the past seven weeks that destructive weather has finished among the top five stories. If weather led the news, politics played a central role in the second and third biggest stories last week. The economy was the No. 2 story, filling 12% of the newshole studied, and much of that coverage focused on a Democratic victory in a special congressional election in western New York widely viewed as a referendum on Republican budget priorities, particularly the party’s plans for reforming Medicare.