The year’s top news stories

Watch part two

This week on The Listening Post we give you our annual countdown of the year’s top 15 news stories.

We have compiled this list with the help of Canada-based media analysts Influence Communication. Each year, they look at the entire world’s global TV output and work out which stories got the most attention.

We will address the following posers: Which politician got twice as much coverage as Madonna? How many years – yes, years – would it take you to watch all the US election coverage in one go?

We will revisit the spectacles of US presidential elections and the Beijing Olympic Games as well as the conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Iraq and Afghanistan. As well as man-made turmoil, an earthquake in Sichuan province, China, and climate change also feature in this year’s most reported stories.

Many celebrity stories made the top reported stories in 2007, but did any feature this year? Have the world’s media got serious in 2008?

Finally, we stitch together our favourite viral videos of the year, including Will.I.Am’s Yes We Can, The Manualist’s rendition of Staying Alive, a 2008 Obama Campaign reprise of the famous Wassup advertisement.

This episode of The Listening Post can be seen at the following times GMT:
Friday, January, 2, 2009: 1230, 2030; Saturday, January 3: 0430; Sunday, January 4: 0600; Monday, January 5: 0530; Tuesday, January 6: 0730, 2330; Wednesday, January 7: 0300, 1000, 1930; Friday, January 8: 0130