TOP TEN DRAMAMENTARIES OF 2005
by
Patrick Fagan
top 10 news stories of 2005, dramamentary news
When a TV news event has consequences that reach across a state, and especially a country, that event is not a true dramamentary. Examples of this from 2005 are the Tsnumai, Pakistan earthquake, and Hurricane Katrina. When an organization comprised of thousands upon thousands of members and stretches worldwide loses its current leader, nor is that a dramamentary. The death of Pope John Paul II is an example of that. Of course, news networks still added drama to these news stories even though there was enough natural drama inherent in them.
Almost all the major news networks, when compiling their own Top 10 Lists, use broad generalizations to rank their news stories. For example, they classify their specific defense and military stories under “Iraq War” or “Terrorism.” Other categories include “Gas And Oil Prices” or “Religious Issues.” Obviously with broad categories like that, the Top 10 lists of the TV news networks are going to exclude the dramamentaries of the year or, at the very least, minimize them.
For the following list, a dramamentary is a news story that is carried over the major TV news networks longer than one month and serves no immediate—or even apparent—public protection purpose or political information in its initial presentation to the public.
More than likely, had the hurricanes not occurred in the last 5 months of 2005, the list of dramamentaries might be different in both order and content. The Kobe Bryant and Martha Stewart cases really began in 2004 and dwindled early in 2005.
1) Terry Schiavo Death Case
2) Natalee Holloway Missing/Murder Case
3) BTK Dennis Rader Case
4) Michael Jackson Trial
5) Jennifer Wilbanks Run Away Bride
6) Wendy's Severed Finger
7) Kobe Bryant Case
8) Martha Stewart Prison Release/TV Reality Show
9) Jennifer Aniston/Brad Pitt Separation
10) Britney Spears Pregnant
Methodological Note: Content analyses were made by using Google with the search phrase “top 10/ten news stories 2005.” The first 200 results in Google were used to compile a set of Top 10’s used by ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, and MSNBC. Google, a subject search on each network’s website, and the subjective observation of this author were the primary methods of ordering the actual stories. Stories were then compared with the sources of The Tyndall Report, the Vanderbilt TV News Archive, and the Pew Research Center.