News events filled more than half of all news coverage studied in a given week on five different occasions in 2011, a rarity in the group’s years of charting news coverage, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The industry term for the space dedicated to journalism after advertising has been placed is known in the industry as the “newshole.”

The biggest one-week story of all was the killing of Osama bin Laden, which filled 69 percent of the newshole that week. That was the biggest weekly story Pew says it has measured since January 2007.

Four other news events in 2011 also surpassed the 50 percent mark. It was the first time since Pew began charting the news agenda that it has seen more than one story break the threshold of filling a majority of the news in a week.

The next most dominating events included:

- The shooting spree which killed six people and nearly killed Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, at 57 percent.

- The Japanese earthquake and tsunami, 57 percent

- Mideast turmoil, 56 percent

- U.S. economy, 52 percent

The previous biggest story, also at 69 percent, was the 2008 presidential campaign from August 25-31, 2008. At the time, Democrats nominated Barack Obama at their Denver convention and John McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his surprise running. The presidential race broke the threshold eight times that year, according to Pew.