The Year in New 2011

The faltering U.S. economy was the No. 1 story in the American news media in 2011, with coverage increasing substantially from a year earlier when economic unease helped alter the political landscape in the midterm elections, according to The Year in the News 2011, a new report conducted by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The year 2011 was also characterized by a jump of more than a third in coverage of international news, by a growing contrast in the content of the three broadcast networks and by a series of dramatic breaking news events that dominated coverage in ways unprecedented in PEJ's five years of studying news agenda.

The biggest story of the year, however, was the economy. As the recovery weakened and Washington engaged in partisan warfare over the debt ceiling, news about the state of the economy jumped to the same level of attention it had received in 2009 when newly elected president Barack Obama passed his controversial stimulus package in response to the "Great Recession." For all of 2011, the economy made up 20% of the space studied in newspapers and online and time on television and radio news, an increase of more than 40% from 14% of the newshole studied in 2010. The unfolding uprisings in the Middle East-from the mass protests in Egypt in February to the hunt for Muammar Gaddafi in October-was the second biggest story of the year. Those events filled 12% of the newshole studied in 2011. That makes the Middle East uprisings the second- biggest annual foreign story on record since PEJ began analyzing the news agenda five years earlier. The only bigger international story was Iraq in 2007, the year of the "surge" under George Bush.

The biggest component of the Mideast story in 2011 was the uprising in Libya, which involved international military intervention and the dramatic search for the fleeing Libyan dictator. The overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt was the second biggest part of the Mideast uprisings story. The ongoing violence in Syria was the third biggest element.
The No. 3 story of the year overall in 2011 was the race for U.S. president, even though no primary or caucus has yet been held or single vote cast. The race for president consumed 9% of the news space in the last year. What was once called pre-primary period, or the invisible primary, is invisible no longer. Four years ago, in 2007, with nomination battles raging in both parties, the presidential campaign was a bigger story, however, accounting for 11% of the newshole.