This year's epic, relentless news cycles were driven by months of near-unprecedented political violence and uncertainty — plus the Olympics, according to Axios' annual analysis of Google Trends data.
Why it matters: Even in a wild election year, America's short attention span for news led to dramatic ups and downs in search trends as the media pivoted from one major story to the next.
The big picture: The Paris Games were the news event that saw the largest spike in interest compared to the others analyzed by Axios.
The election itself — peaking on Nov. 5 — and the Pennsylvania assassination attempt targeting Donald Trump were runners-up.
On the lighter side, the next two biggest peaks were for the total solar eclipse in April and Mike Tyson's return to boxing against YouTuber Jake Paul.
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