News Junkies: Tyndall Tracks 2012’s Top Stories

The Tyndall Report has released its analysis of the network evening newscasts in 2012. As usual, it provides insight into the differences between the newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as who the “most valuable players” are, writes Alex Weprin at mediabistro.com.

The top story of 2012 on both “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” and “ABC World News with Diane Sawyer” was coverage of Mitt Romney‘s Presidential bid. On the “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley,” the top story last year was the rebellion in Syria. CBS spent more time on Syria than NBC and ABC combined.

ABC spent more time than NBC or CBS on soft news stories, like holiday shopping and the British Royals, with NBC dedicating more time to natural disasters than its competitors. CBS spent far more time covering news stories abroad.

Weprin adds the most-utilized correspondent of 2012 was ABC’s David Muir, who spent 426 minutes on-air last year.

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd placed second and third with 269 and 259 minutes, respectively, with ABC’s Jim Avila and Jake Tapper rounding out the top five. The most-utilized correspondent on CBS was Nancy Cordes, who was on-air for 231 minutes.

The Tyndall Report monitors the weekday nightly newscasts of the three American broadcast television networks: ABC World News with Diane Sawyer (formerly Charles Gibson), CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley (formerly Katie Couric) and NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.