According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s News Coverage Index, the Casey Anthony trial verdict utterly dominated the TV news sphere for the week of July 4-10. While the economy was still the number one story for the week across all forms of media, the Anthony Trial was by far the top story on both network and cable television.
The trial and verdict took up 18% of the newshole on the network news programs, and a whopping 38% of the newshole on cable news. The economy was the number two story on both platforms, despite leading the coverage in newspapers, talk radio and online.
Anthony was also the top “newsmaker” for the week, according to PEJ, and was mentioned in 12% of all news stories examined by the organization.
Advertisement