The Year of the Big News Stories

2011 has clearly been the biggest year for news since 2003, according to new polling data released today by UMR Research. The data is based on a question from UMR’s fortnightly telephone omnibus survey, which asks people to rate how closely they have been following stories which have been in the news over the previous fortnight. The series has been running since 2003, and the data shows that four of the six biggest news stories in the last eight years have happened in the last 15 months.

- The Christchurch earthquake is clearly the biggest news story since the series began, with 96% closely following the story.

- The Canterbury earthquake in September 2010 is the next biggest story (followed by 92%)

- The Pike River disaster is the third biggest story of the last eight years, with 88% saying that they followed that story closely.

- The All Black’s victory in the Rugby World Cup was followed by 83%, putting it in 6th equal place. The All Black’s victory would have been the most closely followed story in 5 of the 9 years UMR has been running this question.

The data also shows how the 2011 election was overshadowed by other events. 65% said that they closely followed the election, compared with 79% for the June aftershocks in Christchurch, 78% for the Rena story and 74% for the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis. The election was only the 12th biggest story this year, much lower than it was in either 2005 (7th) or 2008 (8th). This is likely to have contributed to the exceptionally low turnout.

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