Two stories with decidedly different trajectories -- the Iraq war and “the earliest-starting campaign in U.S. history” -- dominated the headlines in 2007, according to the 2008 Project for Excellence in Journalism State of the Media report.

“By the end of the year, with the surge deemed largely to be working and President Bush in control of war policy, coverage of the Iraq conflict diminished considerably — with coverage of the political debate dropping more sharply than news of events on the ground. And with the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary drawing near, coverage of the campaign swelled.

“Taken together, the two continuing story lines — war and a presidential election — consumed a large portion of the media’s energy and resources, and nearly a third of the overall newshole in PEJ’s analysis of the news media.”

The year was also notable for a phenomenon the PEJ report called “The One-Week Wonders: Big Stories That Quickly Vanish.” Topping that list was coverage of the April 16 Virginia Tech killings.

“ … (T)he tragedy accounted for more than half of all news coverage examined, the biggest story of the year in any given week. The media descended on the traumatized Blacksburg, Va., campus and after a few days, a student (or students) had constructed a sign that read ‘VT Stay Strong. Media Stay Away.’

“In fact, the media coverage soon diminished notably. The week following the shooting, Virginia Tech accounted for only 7% of the newshole. By the end of April, it had virtually vanished from the media agenda.”

Other highlights of the report:

• Despite conventional wisdom that the internet is democratizing news, the top 10 news sites are “drawing mostly from old brands, are more of an oligarchy, commanding a larger share of audience, than in the legacy media.”
• Blogs seem to have smaller audiences than expected “and are produced by people with even more elite backgrounds than journalists."
• The biggest problem facing tradition media appears to be “the emerging reality that advertising isn’t migrating online with the consumer.”

Full report here.