Indexes

A financial report card for U.S. banks returned the economic crisis to the top of the news agenda last week while the fighting in Pakistan and Afghanistan also became a major story.

Bloggers last week debated whether the worldwide swine flu outbreak was a serious public health menace or a case of excessive media hype. And Arlen Specter’s change of parties stirred a partisan debate over the state of the GOP.

A story that suddenly emerged from nowhere, the threat of a global influenza pandemic, sent the media into overdrive last week. The flu scare knocked a number of significant events out of the headlines and by week’s end, began to spawn a backlash.

Two hot button issues, torture and same-sex marriage, were the leading subjects sparking conversation online last week. 

The Project for Excellence in Journalism did not issue a News Index report this week, but the data is available.

Bloggers were caught up last week in two major stories: the confrontation with Somali pirates and the April 15 Tea Party protests.

In another week with a mixed news agenda, the media provided some cautiously optimistic assessments of the troubled economy and offered some strikingly different treatment of the tax day tea party protests.

The online community was focused on two subjects that received little attention in the mainstream press last week—the debate over gay marriage and the death of a man at the G20 Summit.

Coverage of the financial meltdown dropped to its lowest level in months last week as Somali pirates, a trip to Turkey, a deadly earthquake and a defiant missile launch dominated the news agenda. Is it a trend or an anomaly?

Bloggers and social media eschewed the economic crisis and European summitry last week to focus on a group of diverse topics ranging from journalism to political activism to environmentalism. Meanwhile the week’s most viewed YouTube video featured a trick shot from a basketball superstar.