Iraq Combat, Presidential Election Dominate 2007 Network Newscasts

Andrew Tyndall of the Tyndall Report (the go-to site for the network evening broadcasts) has come out with his 2007 Year in Review, with a breakdown of the stories covered and who covered them.

The War in Iraq, specifically the angle of US-led combat, clearly had the lead in coverage, with 1,157 stories between the three networks. NBC had the most stories, filing 407 reports (compared to 379 from CBS and 370 from ABC). The second most-covered individual story was the Virginia Tech massacre (244 total stories) and third was the California wildfires (221).

Interestingly, Iraq war coverage effectively ended in late September after Gen. David Petraeus testified to Congress. The networks devoted an average of 30 minutes per week to the war before the testimony; and 4 minutes per week, after.

The presidential election was covered at a far greater length in 2007 than previous penultimate years. The combined coverage of anything election-related amounted to 1,072 stories, with CBS leading the pack with 397 stories (NBC had 347 and ABC had 320). In the previous four Presidential election cycles, the networks aired 946 election stories in all the penultimate years (2003, 1999, 1995, 1991) combined.

Click continued to see which reporters were used the most by their networks.

With Jake Tapper‘s move from the DC Bureau beat last year to the general politics beat this year for ABC, he jumps from #19 to #1 for reporter minutes. Last year‘s #1, NBC’s David Gregory finished in second place this year. CBS’ Nancy Cordes (who logged minutes for both CBS and ABC this year), finished in #5 after not making the top 20 last year.

Overall, the number of minutes used by each reporter in the top 20 is down significantly from last year. Below is the 2007 most heavily used reporter list.