CorpComms Magazine

The riots, the Libyan crisis and plummeting world stockmarkets dominated the British headlines last month, according to new research by media intelligence company Precise.

But the riots topped Britain's news agenda in August generating almost 1,900 articles as journalists captured the shocked reaction to the widespread civil unrest and looting.

More than half the coverage - 1,032 articles - appeared in the British media in the week that riots spread across the country following the fatal shooting of Tottenham man Mark Duggan on 4 August.

The riots overwhelmed coverage of the rout in world stockmarkets; the FTSE 100 index's slump to its lowest level in more than a year on 9 August warranted just 122 mentions.

The story continued to play out over the month as Britain's media began to analyse the impact of the riots and the myriad arrests and convictions that followed. Five people died as a direct result of the riots, while 16 were critically injured and damage worth an estimated £200 million was caused. Indeed, the Bank Holiday media produced more than 80 articles about the situation even though the riots had ended almost two weeks previously.

Coverage of the Libyan situation ticked over during August, spiking in the last week when rebel forces began a coastal offensive and captured Tripoli. More than 620 articles appeared that week representing more than half the media coverage of Libya last month.

Even though the stockmarket rout was the third most written about subject last month, just 380 articles appeared in Britain's media or roughly one fifth of the coverage for the riots.

Almost three out of every four stories about the world's volatile stockmarkets appeared in Britain's broadsheets.

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