In Canada, news media cover the same kinds of stories as other countries, only they really, really like to talk about the weather. Oh, and hockey.
A study by Montreal-based Influence Communication found Canadian newsrooms produced 229% more weather stories than the rest of the 160 countries surveyed.
“We have big changes in our weather in a year, and it goes from very cold to very hot in a few months,” said Felix Thiffault, an analyst with the media monitoring firm. “For some other countries, it’s quite stable. If it’s stable, there’s nothing to say about it.”
Sports stories ranked at the top of news stories covered worldwide, and in Canada, ten of the top fifty stories in 2014 were about hockey. The October 22 shooting near the Canadian parliament was the most-covered story of the year. It was also the top story about Canada that appeared in news media outside the country.