This week’s media round up

Manchester turned blue on Sunday after City secured their first top-flight league title since 1968 after scoring two goals in stoppage time to edge out United on goal difference, the closest finish for 23 years.

The Leveson Inquiry moved into its third stage with former News International employees Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson presenting evidence. Part of Brooks’ testimony focused on conversations between herself and David Cameron which lead to the amusing revelation that the prime minister believed that ‘LOL’ meant lots of love rather than laugh out loud.

The State Opening of Parliament and this year’s Queen’s speech led the headlines with plans to reform the House of Lords standing out from the Government’s proposals.

For the week ending Sunday 17th May the following number of articles were written in mainstream media according to Journalisted.com.

The headlines:

• The Queen’s speech opened parliament outlining the legislative programme for the year ahead, 387 articles
• Manchester City won the Premier League for the first time in 44 years, 300 articles
• The Leveson Inquiry moved into Module 3 – ‘The Press and Politicians’, 285 articles, with Rebekah Brooks, 185 articles and Andy Coulson, 123 articles, appearing at the Royal Courts of Justice
• The political parties in Greece struggled to form a government after the general election resulted in no majority leader, 146 articles
  

  

The overlooked stories:

• 18 mutilated bodies were found in Mexico, 12 articles
• A Russian passenger jet crashed in Indonesia with all 45 deaths, 11 articles
• Algerian elections took place, with the traditionally dominant National Liberation Front increasing their share of the vote, 8 articles

Celebrity versus serious:

• Amanda Holden announced her return on Britain’s Got Talent, 60 articles versus an apparent suicide bombing in Damascus killed 55 and injured almost 400, 22 articles
• Rihanna wore a revealing dress, 73 articles versus a gang of nine men from Rochdale were jailed for sexually exploiting young girls, 65 articles
• Ashleigh Butler and Pudsey the dog won Britain’s Got Talent, 59 articles versus Israel’s PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, called off plans for early elections after forming a government with the centrist Kadima party, 25 articles

Political movers:

Tony Blair gained an seven per cent increase in headlines with after announcing his plans to ‘re-engage’ with British politics after his time working as a Middle-East peace envoy (143 articles).

His successor, Gordon Brown, recorded a nine per cent increase in coverage after records his earnings since stepping down as prime minister emerged (110 articles).

Some distance in the lead was the business secretary, Vince Cable, with an 81 per cent uplift in coverage for his role in a number of stories about executive pay.