Project for Excellence in Journalism

Angry Bloggers Ask: 'Where's the Money?'

June 23, 2011

The discovery that billions of dollars intended for Iraq's post-war reconstruction have gone missing generated a major-and largely partisan-outcry from bloggers last week.

For the week of June 13-17, 54% of the news links on blogs were about the lost Iraq money, more than four times the next biggest subject, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. That revelation got minimal attention in the mainstream press last week, accounting for less than 1% of the newshole according to PEJ's News Coverage Index.

The Los Angeles Times story reported that this represented the "biggest international cash airlift of all time." The story added that federal auditors think the cash may have been stolen, leaving the Pentagon embarrassed and Congress not exactly thrilled.

Among bloggers, the emotion was outright anger as liberals seethed over the mismanagement of the money, often blaming the Bush Administration for its handling of the war in Iraq.

"Ah how the ghost of the lawbreaking, illegitimate and incompetent Bush administration continues to haunt this nation!" wrote Mike Villwock at Big Dumb Guy.

The No. 2 subject on blogs, with 13% of news links, had to do with the Los Angeles Unified School district. In third place, with 6% of links, was a story about the June 10 release of 25,000 of Sarah Palin's emails from her tenure as Alaska governor. That subject generated commentary from both liberal and conservative bloggers who used the occasion to assail or support the politically polarizing Palin.

The fourth-biggest story (5%) was about violence breaking out in Athens, Greece in response to a package of budget cuts and tax increases.

Next came two stories focused on the Republican candidates in the 2012 presidential election (4%). One was a Los Angeles Times article about the GOP candidates making a rightward shift and the other was a 2008 New York Times op-ed written by Mitt Romney arguing that the U.S. should let Detroit go bankrupt. Bloggers pointed out that Romney recently claimed credit for the auto industry's turnaround, and his 2008 op-ed disagrees with his assertion.

 The top two stories on Twitter last week moved away from technology and into the more natural world around us.

At No. 1, with 17% of news links, was a live feed of the lunar eclipse from Wired magazine. In second place were several stories about global warming (14%). 

Learn more about these stories by reading the full report at journalism.org.