The collapse of oil prices is receiving an unprecedented amount of media coverage. It’s a near mirror image of the price of benchmark crude.

As many as 40,000 stories about oil were published on some days during the past month, up from a typically tally of 3,000 over most of the past decade.

The volume of stories written each day climbed steadily in February as it became clear that the coronavirus would impact the global economy.

Coverage surged again in March as the enormity of the economic slowdown caused prices to buckle.

I included a long-term perspective to underscore the scale of the increase and the intensity of media interest.

We’ve never seen anything like this before and probably won’t again.

(Note: Data compiled from Bloomberg, which carries articles and social media posts from 175,000 sources.)