What Are You Reading?

Oh blogs, blogs, blogs! You're ruining the news market with your free information and your constant updating. So what are you talking about that's getting everyone so hyped up they just have to pass your stories along? According to Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism 62 percent of the most linked-to stories by blogs and social media sites were about the economy this week. According to another Pew report, traditional news organizations only covered this topic 41 percent of the time during the same period. Last week 65 percent of all stories linked and viraled from blogs were about the economy. Only 53 percent of the stories from traditional media outlets were on the economy last week. Perhaps the problem is that traditional media is not doing enough to cover the topic that users are interested in reading about right now. Then again the shear mass of the blogisphere may simply be out doing the power of traditional media outlets. The pew survey tracks topics that appear in the more than 100-million blogs and other social media Web pages concerned with national news and public affairs. That's a lot of coverage! Read about the top stories being discussed and linked to after the jump. Among the elements of the economy dissected last week in social media was a letter in the March 24 edition of the New York Times from Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of AIG. The letter received so much attention that by March 27, more than 500 blogs had linked to it... In the letter, DeSantis felt betrayed by AIG's chief executive Edward Liddy and announced his resignation. DeSantis wrote that he had nothing to do with the credit-default transactions that had damaged the company and that the bonus money was contractually obligated to him as compensation for his work. He then suggested he would keep the bonus and donate it to charitable organizations. Other aspects of the financial meltdown also generated discussion, including pieces by liberal New York Times columnists Frank Rich and Paul Krugman that raised questions about Obama's leadership. Krugman's March 22 article criticized details of Obama's plan to rescue troubled banks because it relies on bankers to fix the mess many had helped create. Considering that the majority of topics covered and discussed stem almost directly from the esteemed traditional news outlet the New York Times, perhaps these publications' coverage is not as poor as the above numbers indicate. Maybe they just need to work on better business model. Any thoughts on this topic? Comment and let us know what you think.

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What Are You Reading?

Becki Heller

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Becki Heller