APRIL
Some movement this month, though the same classes hold their places at
the top of the tables. The
170s
have gained a place thanks to the questions of ethics faced by Jeremy
Hunt, and the
620s have
replaced the
780s in the top
10 tens thanks mainly to a leaking gas rig. In the units we've three
climbers to consider: elections both home and abroad gained
324 a place, while acts of terrorism
and civil war (not least in Afghanistan and Syria) have bumped up
303 by two slots. At the bottom of
the pile,
345 sneaked into
joint-10th as extradition fever hit.
As we type, curious news comes to our attention: our old favourite from
the
Ration Book days, Roly Keating,
has been poached from the BBC by the British Library. We are indeed
trendsetters.
MARCH
March sees us with every hundred now represented, although the 300s
remain well ahead of their rivals. There's no movement in the Tens,
with the 320s remaining on top (327 provides the majority, with 324,
320 and 323 lending support, as illustrated by the expanded table). The
highest Unit remains 364, all bar one of which continues within the ".1"
Decimal. "International Relations"
climbs two places thanks mostly to continuing international efforts
with
Syria and to the
continuing problems posed by
Afghanistan.
"Outdoor Sports" is the only Unit in the top 10 that is not a 300. Such
is the influence of Sport in our News.
FEBRUARY
February passes and we begin
to see that the 300s are going to walk this as far as the Hundreds go.
It's the Tens and Units where the racing is likely to occur.
Syria's been the defining story of
the month, but the approach we've taken in our classification is such
that events there register as
Political
Process and
International
Relations rather than
as
Syria. In a library, of
course, books describe events of the past, allowing revolutions and
civil wars to fall more easily into the historical pile of the 900s
than the sociological categories we've been using. Is it more important
that this is a news story about Syria or that this is a news story
about state terror? We've taken the opinion that the latter is the real
guiding principle behind the story being newsworthy (notwithstanding a
certain
Arab Spring
narrative), contrary to the geographical classification we employed
during
Racing News.
