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Even two days after the supermarket parking lot shooting in Arizona that killed six and wounded Rep Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and a dozen others, the tragedy in Tucson was still making huge headlines. All three newscasts sent their anchors to the scene of the crime. All three offered saturation coverage, fully 89% of the three-network newshole (54 min out of 61--ABC 19 min, CBS 18, NBC 18). NBC called its newscast a special edition, with the title Tragedy in Tucson. CBS chose Tragedy in Tucson, while ABC, you guessed it, dubbed its special coverage Tragedy in Tucson.

Such intense coverage is equivalent to the peak attention accorded to the campus massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007 (116 mins over the first two days) and to the military base shooting at Fort Hood in 2009 (85 mins over the first two days). Those killings took 33 lives and 13 lives respectively. By contrast, the deadliest killing spree of 2010, at a Connecticut beer distributorship, ended in nine dead yet attracted just 15 minutes of coverage on the network nightly newscasts. The tragedy in Tucson was not newsworthy because of the scope of the mayhem--but for its presumed target. It was a story because the violence was political.

Andrew Tyndall 1/12/11 8:10:25 pm

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