Yearly Media Index: Top 10 stories of 2008

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Thanks to Patrick Baume of Media Monitors for putting together this list of Australia's top news stories for 2008.

1) Global financial crisis: Despite a low level of coverage surrounding the subprime mortgage loan initiated credit crunch in the U.S. for most of the year, the wall to wall coverage across all forms of media once the crisis spread to the major financial institutions of Wall Street and across the global financial system in early October was enough to make this the largest story in volume terms across the entire year.

2) Climate change: Media discussion of the climate change issue was also relatively quiet early in the year, but it became the dominant domestic political issue in the middle of the year as Professor Ross Garnaut delivered his initial report on the economic steps needing to be taken to combat climate change in June, followed by the Government’s Green Paper on possible structures for an emissions trading scheme, while Professor Garnaut’s second more detailed report on an ETS was somewhat swamped by the global financial crisis.

3) Beijing Olympics: Another solid performance at an Olympics from the Australian team, although this time the expected swathe of gold medals from the pool came almost exclusively from the women’s team, Stephanie Rice, Libby Trickett and Liesel Jones among the multi medal winners, while the second week sprang up the usual amount of surprise winners including pole vaulter Steve Hooker and diver Matthew Mitcham. The Olympics was surprisingly the only sporting event this year to make the Top Ten.

4) Petrol prices: The issue of petrol prices continued to dog the new Federal Government throughout most of the year, as the international oil price spiked to over US$150 a barrel in the middle of the year, leading to prices at the pump as high as $1.80 and a commitment from the Government to introduce an online FuelWatch scheme, which they later abandoned after failing to gain the support of the Senate.

5) U.S Presidential race: In the most globally watched and seemingly longest presidential race in history, Senator Barack Obama from Illinois made history in November, becoming the first African American to be elected President of the USA, easily defeating Republican Senator John McCain after narrowly beating the early favourite Hillary Clinton in her attempt to become the Democrat nominee and first female President.

6) Afghanistan: Several Australian servicemen lost their lives to Taliban attacks in Afghanistan during the year, and general media coverage of the conflict grew in Australia in 2008, as it became the prime overseas theatre of operations for our troops, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd calling on European countries to increase their troop presence with little result.

7) Iraq: After dominating the list of major stories for the previous four years, coverage of the Iraq War slipped to seventh this year, following the election of the Rudd Labor Government and its commitment to withdraw troops by the middle of 2008. There was an increase in level of coverage around the time of the official withdrawal, but overall coverage dropped significantly from previous years.

8) Murray Darling Crisis: The unprecedented drought across inland areas of Eastern Australia and its devastating effect on the Murray Darling Basin and the availability of water for both irrigation and human use, plus the rapid deterioration of the state of the wetlands at the lower end of the system received coverage throughout the year, although coverage was far stronger on regional radio than any other medium, with the issue not even making the top 25 in terms of television coverage.

9) Zimbabwe: After losing both a parliamentary and presidential election, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe managed to cling on to power with the support of the army, despite condemnation from around the globe, with Opposition Leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulling out of a “run-off” election for the presidency. A power sharing deal brokered by the South African President is still being negotiated as the country’s economy slides further into disaster.

10) Housing Affordability: While it may seem long ago now, rising interest rates were one of the huge issues of the first half of the year, as home repossessions increased in the outer suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne and rents skyrocketed as more and more people competed for fewer vacant properties.

QUOTE OF THE YEAR

“For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry"
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (the indigenous apology was 11th biggest issue for the year)

About this index:
This index is based on Australia's top press, television and radio news stories from January - November 2008.

Click here to see Top 10 of 2007.

Tracking the media, monitoring the message

Yearly Media Index: Top 10 stories of 2007

And here they are in all their glory - the top 10 for 2007. Father Slicemas is sure to make a visit to senior media analyst Patrick Baume this December for all the terrific info he's swung our way this year. Thanks Patrick and see you in 2008 for a happy Slicey new year.

Climate issues dominated the Australian media in 2007, with the continuing severe drought and debate over the future of the Murray Darling Basin easily garnering the most coverage over the full year. The Howard Government’s announcement of a $10billion plan at the beginning of the year, aimed at overriding state jurisdictions and promoting a single plan for all water resources in the country’s main river system was fiercely debated throughout the year.

Climate Change itself became a key issue in this election year, with virtually a report a week signalling greater dangers and more rapid climate change occurring as the Government attempted to battle a perception of being well behind world opinion on the issue.

Industrial relations laws, popularly known as WorkChoices, was the other main political battleground of the year, with both unions and business groups spending millions of dollars on campaigns to support their points of view.

Iraq has been at the top of this list for the past four years, but was pushed down to fourth by domestic concerns as Australia’s military focus moved to Afghanistan, although continuing high levels of violence, particularly in the first half of the year, kept the war in the news.

In what many media commentators called the longest Federal election campaign ever, Australians went to the polls on 24 November after a six week official campaign and an eleven month actual campaign, Kevin Rudd leading Labor to their first Federal victory in 14 years.

Interest rates were a constant bugbear for the Howard Government this year, with three rises leading to intense scrutiny of the Government’s promise in 2004 to keep interest rates at record lows, as the media focused on falling levels of housing affordability, particularly in the outer suburbs of Australia’s largest cities.

Unusually, the only sports issue to make the overall top ten this year was the devastating equine influenza outbreak that hit the NSW and Queensland racing industries in August this year. The Sydney portion of the Spring carnival was cancelled entirely leading to hundreds of millions of dollars of lost revenue for the industry, although the Melbourne carnival was able to avoid the epidemic.

APEC leaders met in Sydney in the first week of September with climate change again a key element on the agenda and trade issues seemingly sidelined, while the policy discussions were largely overshadowed by the ABC’s satire program the Chaser breaching security.

The future of David Hicks was closely followed by the media in the first half of the year, Hicks eventually coming to trial after more than five years at Guantanamo Bay and accepting a plea bargain that saw him convicted of supporting a terrorist organisation and moved to Adelaide’s Yatala prison to serve a short further sentence. He will be released at the end of this month.

Another terrorism case had an entirely different outcome after all charges were dropped against Gold Coast Dr Mohamed Haneef, who had been accused of involvement in the foiled plot to bomb several British airports in July this year. Magistrates strongly criticised the AFP for their handling of the case and the Immigration Minister’s decision to withdraw Haneef’s visa was overturned on appeal.

Tracking the media, monitoring the message