Top 20 Evening News Stories of 2005

According to the Tyndall Report:

Subject	Total	ABC	CBS	NBC
Hurricane Katrina	1153	314	317	522
Iraq: US-led combat continues	879	211	411	256
Iraq: election, referendum, politics	310	106	104	100
Indonesia earthquake. tsunami	250	81	82	87
Pope John Paul II dies	246	78	82	86
London mass transit bombs	221	78	69	73
Iraq: post-war reconstruction	181	62	56	62
Right-to-die Schiavo case in Fla	169	61	56	52
CIA agent’s name leaked	166	38	61	68
Iraq: terrorist suicide bombings	164	52	53	59
Oil, gasoline prices rise	156	51	62	43
Social Security system debate	148	45	51	51
NASA Space Shuttle program	146	53	42	51
Israeli-Palestinian conflict	145	46	40	59
Hurricane Rita hits Texas, La	136	34	48	54
Hurricane Wilma hits Florida	122	37	43	42
Influenza: avian outbreak fears	113	37	29	48
Saddam’s Baath aftermath	102	33	35	34
S.Ct Harriet Miers nomination	94	37	25	32
Kashmir earthquake	86	23	34	30
Total Top Twenty Stories	4987	1477	1700	1809

“Natural disasters dominated the year,” Tyndall writes. “With Hurricane Katrina in the lead, they attracted triple their average annual attention.” NBC “made Katrina its signature story.”

CBS stuck to the Iraq beat “most tenaciously,” but “no Baghdad-based reporter made the Top 20 ranking” of most heavily-used reporters.

Also, “ABC invented the Culture Wars as a new news beat, with a fourtopic combo: church-v-state, the culture of life, coarsening mass media, and sexual morality issues. Reporter Dan Harris led the coverage along with DC-based Jake Tapper (155 min).”