Osama's death 3rd biggest news of 21st century: study

Washington, May 6: The killing of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden by US special forces in Pakistan surpassed Britain's much publicised Royal Wedding to be ranked as the third biggest news of the 21st century, according to a study.

A survey conducted by the Austin-based Global Language Monitor said Osama's death news was placed at the third place behind the rise of China to first-tier nation status and the election of Barack Obama as the US President which are placed at 1st and 2nd spot respectively.

It said the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton on April 29 was ranked 5th, just ahead of the media blitz surrounding the 2009 sudden death of Michael Jackson.

The Wikileaks revelations was ranked 4th whereas, Japan's last month quake-tsunami disasters was at 8th and Arab revolutions at 9th place respectively. There was no India-centric news among top 20.

The GLM used an algorithm to track citations of the biggest news stories on the top 750,000 world print and electronic media sites, as well as citations on the Internet, blogosphere, Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites.

"The acceleration of the news cycle has been a long-observed fact, however the acceleration of the news itself can also be viewed as unprecedented," said Paul JJ Payack, President and the Chief Word Analyst of GLM.

PTI