Posts Tagged ‘George Will’

The earthquake and tsunami that victimized Japan March 11 accounted for a whopping 66 percent of Tweeted news links for the week of March 7-11, despite occurring on the last day of the period, while the upcoming 2012 presidential campaign dominated the blogosphere, and the most-watched news and politics video on YouTube was a Spanish news report about a soccer player kicking an owl during a game, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism’s New Media Index.

The disaster was followed on the list of most-shared news links via Twitter by: the civil war in Libya, at 15 percent; a report in The Sun that Justin Bieber skateboarded through an airport terminal in Birmingham, at 13 percent; Google, at 10 percent; and a preview of the Apple iPad 2 from Mashable, at 7 percent.

The race for the 2012 presidential election accounted for 37 percent of news links shared by bloggers, followed by: the death of Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist David Broder, at 17 percent; the executive order signed by President Barack Obama to create a formal system of indefinite detention for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, at 10 percent; a column in The Washington Post by George Will questioning the United States’ intervention in Libya, at 7 percent; and a Washington Post interview with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko regarding allegations that the recent election there was fraudulent, at 6 percent.

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Arianna Huffington will be part of a roundtable discussion on Sunday’s installment of ABC News’ This Week with Christiane Amanpour.

The subject is the Egyptian revolution, the role of social media, and what Egypt means for the rest of the Middle East, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if a certain transaction found its way into the discussion.

The other seats at the roundtable will be filled by Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution, ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper, and ABC News’ George Will.

An op-ed piece in The Washington Post by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), which praised President Barack Obama for his Jan. 12 speech at the memorial service honoring those slain in the shootings in Tucson, Ariz., Jan. 8, was the most-shared news link by bloggers, while Apple once again topped the list of most-Tweeted news links, and the most-watched news and politics video on YouTube was footage of flooding in Toowoomba, Australia, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism’s New Media Index for the week of Jan. 17-21.

McCain’s op-ed accounted for 17 percent of news links shared via the blogosphere, and it was followed by: video of a BBC interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, appearing for the second week in a row, at 16 percent; another Washington Post op-ed piece, this one by George Will, who wrote that Congress has bequeathed much of its lawmaking power to the presidency and other government agencies in recent years, at 15 percent; health care, at 14 percent; and the economy, at 8 percent.

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The economy was top-of-mind for bloggers during the final week of 2010, while Apple was the apple of the Twitterverse, and the most-watched news and politics video on YouTube was footage of a man who threw himself off the balcony of the Romanian Parliament, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism’s New Media Index for the week of Dec. 27-31.

A total of 31 percent of news links shared by bloggers concerned the economy, including a story from USA Today about the Bureau of Labor Statistics revising its method for measuring long-term unemployment, and The Washington Post reporting that more banks failed in the United States in 2010 than in any year since 1992. The economy was followed by: a Washington Post report that National Basketball Association player Gilbert Arenas cut off communication and funds from his girlfriend, Laura Govan, after being traded to the Orlando Magic, at 12 percent; members of Congress getting donations from the same companies they are writing legislation for, at 7 percent; President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton topping the list of most-admired people, at 6 percent; and an op-ed by George Will urging congress to pass the Public Employee Pension Transparency Act, also at 6 percent.

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The WikiLeaks controversy only managed second-place finishes on the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism’s New Media Index rankings of most shared news stories via blogs and Twitter for the week of Nov. 29-Dec. 3, trailing the death of actor Leslie Nielsen in the blogosphere and NASA’s discovery of a completely new life form in the Twitterverse. Meanwhile, the most-watched news and politics video on YouTube was footage of an angry, handcuffed man yelling in Portuguese.

Nielsen’s passing accounted for 17 percent of bloggers’ shared news links, and WikiLeaks tallied 16 percent, followed by: a column in The Washington Post by George Will arguing against restricting children’s access to video games, at 12 percent; a Washington Post story about how federal stimulus money went to more sources than many people realized, at 11 percent; and another Washington Post op-ed by a George Washington University Law professor on why Transportation Safety Administration pat-downs and body scans are unconstitutional, at 9 percent.

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