Tributes to Gary Speed get most news coverage

Tributes by fans and footballers to Welsh manager Gary Speed led the news coverage for the week ending Sunday 4 December, according to journalisted.

The tributes to Speed, generated 462 articles; the Leveson Inquiry into press ethics and phone hacking, 204 articles (including evidence given by Alastair Campbell, 65 articles, Christopher Jefferies, 26 articles, and Alec Owens, 15 articles); Public sector workers take to the streets to protest against pension reforms, 182 articles (including 125 articles on Jeremy Clarkson’s controversial comments made on The One Show); the storming of the British Embassy in Tehran prompts William Hague to expel Iranian diplomats in UK, 155 articles; and the BBC ‘Sports Personality of the Year’ award attracts criticism over the lack of nominations for sportswomen, 117 articles.

Covered little, according to journalisted, were Cote d’Ivoire’s former president Laurent Gbagbo handed over to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, 25 articles; Metropolitan Police considers buying water cannon and plastic bullets for future riots, 5 articles; two men sentenced to death in Belarus (the only European country that retains the death penalty) for bombing the Minsk subway in April, 5 articles; and British soldier sentenced for stabbing 10-year-old Afghan boy, 4 articles.