W*in*r accounted for 17% of all news coverage last week

[Newsjock]

Source: Pew Research Center

The scandal that launched 1,000 puns—Rep. Anthony Weiner’s exchange of explicit messages and images with a number of women—topped the news last week, registering as one of the biggest political scandal stories of the past four years.

From June 6-12, the saga accounted for 17% of the newshole measured by the News Coverage Index of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

That makes the Weiner saga the fourth-most covered scandal involving elected officials since PEJ began tracking news in January 2007.

The biggest political scandal of the last four and a half years was former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s corruption case (28%)—also known as “Blago-gate”—in which he allegedly tried to sell President Barack Obama’s former senate seat. No 2 was former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s admission that he used prostitutes (23%), followed quickly by his resignation from that office. News of former Idaho Senator Larry Craig’s arrest for lewd behavior in an airport was the No. 3 scandal, at 18%. Craig ultimately pled guilty to lesser charges.

Read more: http://www.journalism.org/index_report/news_coverage_index_june_612_2011

[Erose999]

1. Whats a congressman gotta do to top that? Diaper fetishes? Dead interns? Serve his wife divorce

papers while she's dying of cancer and marry his congressional aide?

[KharmaTrain]

2. No Surprise...Sex Sells...

Showing a report on what's going on in Wisconsin involves hiring reporters and news crews...and for what returns? Weiner had all the elements of a story the corporate media craves...sex, power, pictures, texts and a bumbling man caught lying about sex. The story was handed to them and each day there was some new salicious detail to obsess over. Big return for little investment...how the corporates like it.