Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogged Comments

October 28, 2010

As Election Day approaches, comments by two of the biggest names in the Tea Party movement -- GOP Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin -- generated party-line responses in the blogosphere.

The No. 1 topic, at 17% of the links from Oct. 18-22, stemmed from O'Donnell's comments during an Oct. 19 debate, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. In the debate, she questioned an aspect of the First Amendment, asking, "Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?"

A day before, in Reno, Nev., Palin proclaimed that her supporters couldn't "party like it's 1773" until Washington is full of like-minded conservatives. Those remarks ranked No. 3 for the week at 8% of the links.

Both quotes provoked pointed and partisan commentary from bloggers. Liberal bloggers belittled O'Donnell's question about church and state, saying it illustrated her ignorance of the Constitution. The blog response to Palin's quote came primarily from conservatives rising to her defense. After a few commentators on Twitter mocked Palin's reference to the year 1773, conservative bloggers jumped in, accusing Palin's critics of not knowing that that was the year of the Boston Tea Party.

The election was also the biggest story in the mainstream media, but with a focus on campaign strategy surrounding individual races rather than choice quotes.

The second-biggest topic on blogs last week, at 14%, was an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of Yukos, the Russian oil company, who has been in prison since 2003 on fraud charges. Khodorkovsky wrote of hopes for a new political generation in Russia that will not accept corruption. Numerous Russian-language blogs picked up on the story, offering a Russian translation and adding their thoughts.

Tied for third place was an op-ed by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post deriding President Obama as an "intellectual snob" who "resorts to reductionism, explaining his opponents away." Bloggers from both the left and right chimed in, disagreeing about the merits of the column.

And the No. 5 story last week, receiving 8% of links, also generated substantial coverage in the mainstream media -- NPR's firing of Juan Williams for his remarks about Muslims on Fox News. Most of the response to Williams' comments -- that he gets "worried" and "nervous" when seeing people in "Muslim garb" on planes -- came from liberals critical of Williams.

Continue reading the full report at journalism.org.