Since April of 2004, the Los Angeles Times has published over 20,000 words on the death and the controversy surrounding the death of NFL star Pat Tillman in Afghanistan. The word total includes 20 articles, editorials, and op-eds.

Meanwhile, since July of 2004, the Times has published less than 4,200 words on the story of former Clinton security advisor Sandy Berger pilfering classified documents from the National Archives. This includes 7 articles and one editorial. Two of the seven "articles" were in the notorious "In Brief" section, by the way.

This morning I couldn't help notice that it was the second day in a row that the Times had devoted generous section A coverage to the recent stories surrounding the death of hero Tillman (here and here). As tremendously sad and tragic as this episode was, does it really merit this much coverage nearly three years after the incident? (The Times has published three articles totaling over 3,000 words since last Saturday (3/24/07). All three articles were teased on page one.)

A final reminder: Earlier month, the Times published over 8,400 words in one day after the Scooter Libby verdict (here). That's one day of coverage exceeding by two times over two-and-a-half years of coverage of the Sandy 'Burglar' case!