In One Chart, Here's Why The Media Is Spending So Much Time Covering The Zimmerman Trial

CNN's Wolf Blitzer had two rather defiant moments early this afternoon.

First, he made a brief appearance on air to talk about Egypt's unfolding events, in a cut away from the network's ongoing, sometimes tireless coverage of the George Zimmerman trial.

When he handed it back to Ashleigh Banfield for more Zimmerman analysis, he snidely remarked that while there was "historic news in Egypt right now," there was "other news going on, too."

Then, as he was set to go live on air for the 1 p.m. ET hour of "CNN Newsroom," he tweeted a message specifically noting that he would be covering the Egypt developments.

CNN has taken plenty of heat today for its focus on the Zimmerman trial, which it has only interrupted for brief updates on a situation one of their star anchors calls "historic."

There's a simple reason why, however, as the New York Times' Nate Silver pointed out on Twitter. The public is much more interested in the play-by-play of a domestic trial that has attracted enormous media interest because of its implications for the debate on race in America.

As you can see in the Google Trends chart below, searches for Zimmerman-related searches far outpace those related to Egypt: