This is the only important news of 2024
Have you heard about the eclipse? Oh, you have? Are you sure? Shall I tell you again?
The Dallas Morning News has been covering the upcoming total solar eclipse like it is God’s gift to journalism.
That’s the conclusion of a recent Lost in Panther City analysis of local media. We’ve crunched the numbers, and while many newspapers and broadcast stations in the area have been running stories about the eclipse for months, the Dallas Morning News has clearly dedicated the most resources to ensure you are fully prepared for the four minutes of darkness that will descend on the Metroplex in April.
The newspaper hosted an Instagram live event about the eclipse in February, and it is organizing another in-person event later this month. It also launched a newsletter about the eclipse; set up a dedicated page for coverage of the eclipse; curated a playlist of songs tangentially related to the eclipse; and has a literal countdown timer plastered atop its homepage that somehow also follows you no matter where you go on the website — a ticking clock that haunts you even when you’re trying to read about non-eclipse related news. The eclipse countdown is always there.
This dedication to covering the eclipse is also reflected in the raw number of stories published on their website since November 2023. Here’s a breakdown of the very and extremely scientific data I collected earlier this afternoon:
NBC DFW: 25
Fox 4: 21
WFAA: 14
KERA: 7
D Magazine: 1
A few clarifications on this data: Several outlets, including the Star-Telegram, started running stories about the total eclipse a year or more in advance. WFAA has the distinction of being the first local news outlet to start seriously building the hype with a story published all the way back in 2021 along with a video segment that aired even earlier in 2019. Those stories aren’t captured in this data.
I also included Associated Press wire stories in the count (and one national NPR story in KERA’s count), though there were only a handful of these in total. The overwhelming majority of stories I looked at were written by local reporters.
I also decided not to include press releases and stories that mentioned the total eclipse in passing but weren’t really about the eclipse or events directly connected to the eclipse. The only exception was this Star-Telegram story about a new Buc-ee’s in Hillsboro that may or may not be opening its doors for the first time during totality, which I did include in my count because it made me go “huh?”:
If you think that Buc-ee’s can be busy on an ordinary Monday, imagine what the Hillsboro store will be like if Buc-ee’s capitalizes on eclipse fever — Beaver-themed viewing glasses, anyone?
No.
To be clear, I do think living in the path of totality is cool. It’s actually the second time this has happened to me. I was living right in the middle of the corridor traveled by the 2017 eclipse — the one that Trump looked at without protective glasses, which is most of what I remember about it (though I did also write a very mediocre news story about people who camped out in a park to see it).
But I do wonder whether the volume of coverage indicates, deep down — so deep down they can’t even admit it to themselves — that the Dallas Morning News editors believe the total eclipse is in fact a harbinger of horrifying divine punishment that will soon be inflicted upon the world by ancient and wrathful gods. And given that multiple Texas counties are preemptively and officially declaring that a predicted influx of eclipse tourists will be a disaster, maybe they are not wrong.