Despite a lack of controversy and an emerging consensus that she will be confirmed, Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings dominated the news cycle last week.

The hearings grabbed the largest portion of the news hole -- 22 percent, according to numbers compiled weekly by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. This amount falls just short of the 24 percent garnered by the nomination announcement in the last week of May, but it comes after several weeks in which Sotomayor did not make it into Pew's news index at all.

"When you look at the content of what the news coverage was about, it does suggest there was a certain amount of sense on part of the news media saying that 'this is something we need to cover historically,' " said Amy Mitchell, deputy director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "They devote staff and [space in] the news hole whether there are significant headlines that come out of the day's proceedings or not."

When Pew breaks down the news coverage by sector, the hearings came out on top for all except newspapers, which devoted more space to the economic crisis (19 percent) and the health care debate (14 percent). "Newspapers have been very devoted to the economy over the course of the last year, and so that continued to be a large part of their front page news hole," Mitchell said. Cable news devoted the most time to the hearings -- a full third of its coverage -- while the online sector came in second at just under 25 percent.

Cable news is an ideal format for the hearings, according to Mitchell. "It lends itself well to both updates and ongoing discussion," she said. "To that extent, the discussion angle is one that appeals more to cable TV than other genres."

As for the quality of the coverage, Curt Levey of the conservative Committee for Justice said it offered "plenty of substance," but complained that there was too much discussion of process, especially about Republican senators' focus on Sotomayor's "wise Latina woman" comment. This observation is somewhat borne out by Pew's topic breakdown, in which the "Senate reactions/Legislative action" theme made up a whopping 86 percent of stories about the hearings, while less than 10 percent were devoted to "Judicial philosophy/Approach." The percentage of stories focusing on Sotomayor's ethnicity, though, was not as high. Thirty percent discussed her Hispanic ethnicity, while 70 percent did not. Mitchell noted that the "wise Latina woman" quote would be part of the 30 percent.

On Thursday afternoon, Pew will release its numbers from last week specifically looking at new media, particularly blogs and social media sites.