Health Care Reform Debate Is Top Story of '09 on Evening Network Newscasts

Iraq War logs most minutes of coverage for decade

By Marisa Guthrie -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/5/2010 2:56:29 PM

The often vitriolic health care reform debate was the top story of 2009 on the three evening newscasts, according to independent news analyst Andrew Tyndall's year-in-review report. Also, the war in Afghanistan surpassed the war in Iraq and ABC's Jake Tapper was the correspondent who got the most airtime on his network's evening news broadcast.

The health care reform debate received 588 minutes on ABC's World News, The CBS Evening News and NBC's Nightly News. NBC devoted the least amount of minutes to the story with 178 compared to 205 each for ABC and CBS.

The second most covered story was the H1N1 outbreak, totaling 588 minutes on the three broadcasts with 222 minutes on NBC, 180 on ABC and 178 on CBS. Coverage in general of H1N1 came under fire with some critics claiming stories about deaths from H1N1 were fomenting panic. The strain of influenza was misleadingly labeled swine flu when it first surfaced leading to the senseless slaughter of thousands of pigs in Egypt. Probably as much criticism was also levied at the government for its handling of the outbreak including efforts to produce and disseminate a vaccine.

Rounding out the top five stories of the year were the escalation in the battle for Afghanistan; the recession and stimulus; and the bankruptcy of the U.S. auto industry.

The death of Michael Jackson, a story the news divisions' all covered breathlessly in numerous primetime specials, was No. 8 behind unemployment (No. 7) and the financial industry bailout (No. 6). Jackson's death received 237 minutes on the evening newscasts. CBS did the most with 101 minutes followed by NBC (70) and ABC (66).

Also in 2009, the war in Afghanistan surpassed the war in Iraq for the first time. Afghanistan received 556 minutes of air time on World News, The CBS Evening News and Nightly News, while the war in Iraq, which is in the drawdown phase, received a paltry 80 minutes. In 2008, Afghanistan received 126 minutes of airtime compared to 244 for Iraq. Broadcast evening news overage of the Iraq war peaked in 2003 with 1,602 minutes. It has fallen year-to-year, but declined precipitously between 2007 (1,157 minutes) and 2008 (244).

A new presidential administration energized the White House beat. Consequently, Tapper - who is a contender for George Stephanopoulos' seat at This Week - logged 370 minutes on World News in 2009.

CBS News chief White House correspondent Chip Reid was not far behind with 341 minutes on The CBS Evening News. NBC medical reporter Robert Bazell was the third busiest correspondent with 312 minutes on Nightly News, followed by Chuck Todd and Tom Costello, NBC's chief White House correspondent and Washington bureau reporter, respectively.

But Tapper, who joined ABC News in 2003 and covered the 2004 presidential election, was absent from the list of top-20 most-used correspondents for the decade. The top spot on that list goes to NBC's Andrea Mitchell, who logged 2,416 minutes on Nightly News between 2000 and the end of 2009. She is followed by NBC medical reporter Bazell (2,328), NBC Justice Department correspondent Peter Williams (2,280), CBS Pentagon correspondent David Martin (2,096) and NBC's David Gregory, the network's erstwhile White House correspondent who assumed the anchor seat at Meet the Press in December 2008.

The top story of the decade was the Iraq war (6,445 minutes). The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a distant second, receiving 2,424 minutes on the three evening newscasts followed by the war in Afghanistan (2,372), the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 (2,339) and stock market action (1,951).