Wednesday 8 May 2024 · below the Index · spike
Baltimore bridge demolition to free cargo ship
Crews prepared to use explosives to demolish part of Baltimore's Key Bridge to help free a trapped cargo ship, following the bridge collapse in March 2024.
Peak 71.0 on Monday 6 May 2024. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Over the whole window this ran Social-led; on the peak day itself it read Public curiosity-led. When the two differ, the fast signals (social, news) spiked and faded while the slow ones (search, research) carried the tail. Social here is X alone — Bluesky only joins the series from July 2024 — so its level isn't directly comparable with today's series, though its share of this incident is real.
Bar = share of the extra attention over the whole window; the tick marks the share on the peak day alone, where the two differ.
How unusual it was
This was above 71% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Monday 6 May 2024.
How far it spread
No vessel type moved — 0 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Bars start at 1× — normal readership for that vessel type, the weeks before the incident. Grey = no clear lift. "Over time" shows each group's daily readers through the window; "All 12 articles" breaks the six groups back into their members.
How it was framed the frame glossary →
Lead frame: human drama. Trade press was 3% of in-scope coverage — the story had left the trade press and gone mainstream. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)
Acting, or acted upon
In 56% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor; 3% of it was strongly negative in tone.
What the coverage said
- Crews will use explosives to demolish part of Baltimore's Key Bridge this weekend to help free a trapped cargo shipcnn.com · 2024-05-10
- Bridge Wreckage Removed from Container Ship at Baltimore Collapse Siteenr.com · 2024-05-07
- 6 People Presumed Dead After Cargo Ship Crash Levels Baltimore Bridgebeaufortcountynow.com · 2024-05-07
- Explosives will free Dali cargo ship from Baltimore Key bridge wreckagenypost.com · 2024-05-08
- Dali Cargo Ship To Be Freed From Baltimore Key Bridge Using Explosivesdailycaller.com · 2024-05-08
- Explosives will be used to help free container ship from Baltimore Key Bridgeyahoo.com · 2024-05-08
Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title.
- social = X only before Bluesky (2024-07-01); not comparable with today's series
- tier C: only a Wikipedia article, GDELT sub-vocabulary term, or social per-term query fired — not yet confirmed as a real maritime incident (Phase C naming/is_maritime_incident does that).
- integrated and peak-day verdicts differ (smoothing artefact likely)
- coverage scored on title only (no excerpt) — measured ~8pp frame precision cost vs title+excerpt (docs/HANDOVER-incidents.md §2.3)
- coverage filtered to articles matching this incident specifically (32/431 kept) — see coverage.filter.terms
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Baltimore bridge demolition to free cargo ship, peak 71.0 on 6 May 2024. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2024-baltimore-bridge-demolition-to-free-cargo-ship/