Swine flu named year's top Swedish news story

Swine flu beat out both the June death of Michael Jackson and the Stockholm helicopter heist in September as the top Swedish news story of 2009, according to a new study.

• Saab closure sad but expected: Swedish media (20 Dec 09)
• Spread of swine flu in Sweden slowing down: official (26 Nov 09)
• Two more held as police look for second pilot (19 Nov 09)

Looking back on the last ten years as a whole, the 2005 tsunami was the most covered event of the decade.

Media analysis firm Infopac has created a news barometer based on the headlines in the major Swedish newspapers, television shows and radio programs over the last 10 years.

The study not only tracks which events made top headlines over the years but also how they were covered by the media.

In 2009, swine flu was the top news item 200 times, with more than twice as much coverage as Israel's assault on Gaza in January, which in turn beat out both the crisis of the Swedish automobile industry and the yet-to-be determined fate of Swedish automaker Saab.

Another headline grabbing story was the September 2009 helicopter robbery of a cash depot south of Stockholm in which several suspects stole a helicopter, smashed into the building, and they made off with undisclosed amounts of cash.

Several suspects are now in the custody of Swedish police who continue to investigate the dramatic robbery.

Over the entire 2000s, the 2005 tsunami and its political aftermath made top headlines 560 times.

The tsunami was followed in popularity by the Iraq war, the 2003 murder of Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh in a Stockholm department store, and riots which ravaged the streets of Gothenburg during the during the June 2001 EU summit, resulting in three people being shot and injured by police.

The study also reveals that around 10 percent of the top headlines in Sweden's morning newspapers dealt with foreign news, business and medicine/health.

Broadcast media, on the other hand, lead with international news at 20 percent of the time, while almost 29 percent of the top stories covered by evening newspapers were crime-related.