THE Scots tennis player, Andy Murray, had an estimated 9,634 articles written about him this year on the websites of the country’s major newspapers – plus a couple of others – making him the most written-about sports personality this year in the UK.
And the winner of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year on Sunday was closely followed by fellow Scots – Manchester United FC manager, David Moyes (8,503), and his predecessor, Sir Alex Ferguson (8,091) – in the listing compiled by Journalisted website run by the Media Standards Trust.
Meanwhile, First Minister, Alex Salmond, came tenth in the listing of UK politicians written about on the websites of the national Press, BBC News and Sky News – with an estimated 3,006 articles.
The statistics were based on articles published between January 1 and Friday on national news websites, BBC News online and Sky News online.
In summary, Journalisted (in its words) reported the following:
Covered lots this year
* Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA and GCHQ (7,109 articles) dominated national papers from June onwards.
* Royal Mail privatisation (3,438 articles). After the floatation on the Stock Exchange, share prices increased by 38 per cent, which prompted commentators to suggest that the company had been undervalued.
* Fusilier, Lee Rigby, died in Woolwich after an extremely violent and public attack. The trial for his murder is ongoing (2,463 articles).
* Pope Benedict XVI resigned his office in March and was replaced by Pope Francis I (1,533 articles).
* The alleged use of the nerve gas, Sarin, by Syrian Government forces almost led to Western military intervention in the Syrian Civil War (990 articles).
Covered little this year
* Over 5,700 civilians were killed in Iraq from January to September in bomb attacks as the country remains unstable (489 articles).
* The collapse of the Rana Plaza building, a garment factory in Bangladesh, killed 1,129 workers – one of the worst industrial accidents in history (353 articles).
* Unrest in Yemen has claimed the lives of hundreds. 52 were killed in a suicide bomb attack in December (183 articles).
* Teenage pregnancy in the UK, which has fallen to its lowest level since 1969, and by 12.5 per cent from 2011-2012 (155 articles) (Figures from the FPA).
* Flooding in Uttarakhand in North India killed over 5000 people and left thousands more displaced (54 articles).
Scandals and scares
* Food sold in a number of major UK supermarkets were found to contain horsemeat after DNA tests (1,848 articles).
* Paul Flowers, former chair of The Co-operative Bank – was embroiled in an unlikely drugs and sex scandal in November (64 articles).
* House prices continued to increase in 2013 (3,952 articles), amid concern over a possible housing bubble (1,067 articles).
* The false widow spider, or ‘steatoda nobilis’, was reported to extremely dangerous and on the increase in the UK (32 articles).
* Cycling deaths in London made headlines after six people died on the roads in two weeks (2,309 articles).
Top 15 most covered UK politicians
1. David Cameron (22,717 articles) – 1st last year
2. George Osborne (9,853) – 2nd last year
3. Ed Miliband (8,174) – 3rd last year
4. Nick Clegg (5,970) – 4th last year
5. Tony Blair (4,773) – 6th last year
6. Boris Johnson (3,756) – 5th last year
7. Michael Gove (3,277) – 8th last year
8. William Hague (3,069) – 11th last year
9. Theresa May (3,068) – 10th last year
10. Alex Salmond (3,006) – 13th last year
11. Vince Cable (2,926) – 7th last year
12. Gordon Brown (2,849) – 9th last year
13. Ed Balls (2,804) – 14th last year
14. Nigel Farage (2,328) – below 15th last year
15. Jeremy Hunt (2,075) – 12th last year
Top ten international politicians
1. Barack Obama (9,215 articles) – 1st last year
2. Vladimir Putin (2,767) – 5th last year
3. Bashar Al-Assad (2,278) – below 10th last year
4. Angela Merkel (2,239) – 3rd last year
5. Silvio Berlusconi (1,342) – below 10th last year
6. Mohamed Morsi (1,196) – below 10th last year
7. Hillary Clinton (1,718) – below 10th last year
8. Tony Abbott (1,118) – below 10th last year
9. Hosni Mubarak (941) – below 10th last year
10. Kim Jong-Un (888) – below 10th last year
Terrorist groups (proscribed by the Home Office)
1. Al-Qaeda or Al-Qaida (6,449 articles – 5,428 last year)
2. IRA (1,607 articles – 474 last year)
3. Al-Shabaab (911 articles – 113 last year)
4. Hezbollah (892 articles – 293 last year)
5. Hamas (600 articles – 982 last year)
6. Boko Haram (331 articles – 75 last year)
Twerking, Selfies, and Bitcoins
* ‘Twerking’ became very popular, especially after Miley Cyrus’s VMA performance (5,513 articles).
* The ‘Harlem Shake’ Youtube phenomenon had more newspaper coverage than 2012’s ‘Gangnam Style’ (986 articles compared to 429 articles).
* Everyone was taking ‘selfies’ in 2013 – even David Cameron, Ed Milliband, and Pope Francis (2,141 articles).
* The selfie-sharing app, Snapchat, gained media attention this year (268 articles).
* Bitcoins, the online currency, received over half as many mentions in the press as the Chinese currency, the Yuan (780 and 1410 articles respectively).
Sidebar staples
1. ‘Plastic surgery’ (988 articles)
2. ‘Plunging neckline’ (553 articles)
3. ‘Wardrobe malfunction’ (448 articles)
4. ‘Bikini body’ (347 articles)
5. ‘Courtney Stodden’ (230 articles)
6. ‘Side boob’ (225 articles)
7. ‘All grown up’ (227 articles)
8, ‘Revealing outfit’ (119 articles)
9. ‘Toyboy lover’ (83 articles)
10. ‘Curve flaunting’ (31 articles)
Births
* Kate Middleton (1,395 articles) gave birth to Prince George (1,483). This probably accounts for the unprecedented coverage of ‘baby bumps’ (4,282 articles) and ‘post-baby body’ (226 articles).
* Kim Kardashian (2,933 articles) and Kanye West (3,576 articles) had a baby named ‘North West’.
* Lily Allen (1,034 articles) and Sam Cooper had a baby girl named Marie Rose in January.
* Kate Winslet (545 articles) and Ned Rockwell had a baby boy in December.
* Tian Tian, the giant panda at Edinburgh Zoo, miscarried in October (188 articles).
Marriages and splits
* The House of Lords passed legislation in July allowing same-sex marriage from 2014 (4,844 articles).
* Keira Knightley and James Righton got married in secret in the south of France (70 articles).
* Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas separated after 13 years of marriage (251 articles).
* Nigella Lawson (6,304 articles) and Charles Saatchi (962 articles) separated after a public altercation was caught on camera.
Deaths
1. Margaret Thatcher (7,748 articles)
2. Nelson Mandela (3,744 articles)
3. James Gandolfini (1,547 articles)
4. Cory Monteith (863 articles)
5. David Frost (723 articles)
6. Hugo Chavez (623 articles)
7. Iain Banks (422 articles)
8. Lou Reed (342 articles)
9. Doris Lessing (238 articles)
10. Paul Walker (232 articles)
Most written about sports personalities
1. Andy Murray (9,634 articles)
2. David Moyes (8,503 articles)
3. Alex Ferguson (8,091 articles)
4. Wayne Rooney (7,600 articles)
5. Gareth Bale (7,401 articles)
6. Jose Mourinho (6,791 articles)
7. Mesut Ozil (2,561 articles)
8. Mo Farah (2,349 articles)
9. Stuart Broad (1,993 articles)
10. Oscar Pistorius (1,752 articles)
In-depth stories
1. ‘Delhi Rape: how India’s other half lives’ – Jason Burke, Guardian (7,085 words)
2. ‘The Royal Wave’ – Rebecca English and Martin Robinson, Mail Online (6,926 words)
3. Nelson Mandela obituary – David Beresford, Guardian (6,696 words)
4. ‘Marwa’s story’ – Kevin Connolly, BBC News (6,516 words)
5. ‘”Born Rich”… and now richer’ – Helen Pow, Mail Online (6,504 words)
6. ‘What’s wrong with the modern world’ – Jonathan Franzen, Guardian (6,462 words)
7. Margaret Thatcher obituary – Andy McSmith, The Independent (5,892 words)
8. ‘Nicky Crane: The secret double life of a gay neo-Nazi’ – Jon Kelly, BBC News Magazine (6,475 words)
9. ‘Security alert: notes from the frontline of the war in cyberspace’ – Jon Ronson, The Guardian (5,876 words)
10. ‘”The under-25s should NOT get the dole”: Cameron says all school leavers should be earning or learning…’ – Matt Chorley, Mail Online (5,174 words)
