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Project for Excellence in Journalism
Hacking Scandal Tops Twitter for a Second Week
The intensifying phone hacking scandal enveloping Rupert Murdoch's media empire was the top story on Twitter for the second week in a row, with Twitter users once again aiming sharp criticism at the media mogul's company.
For the week of July 11-15, 19% of the news links on Twitter were about the scandal, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. While still the top story, that is down considerably from the previous week when the subject accounted for 53% of news links -- more attention than any topic has generated in the NMI in the past 10 months.
Twitter users commenting on the scandal showed little sympathy for Murdoch or his employees. "My condolences to the #NOTW workers who've lost their jobs. I'm off to hack their relatives' phones to see how they're coping," wrote Fort Knox.
The phone hacking furor generated significant headlines in the mainstream news as the No. 2 story from July 11-17, filling up 12% of the newshole. And a discussion of the scandal on a BBC talk show proved to be the second most popular news video last week.
As is often the case, news about Google also figured prominently in the Twitter news agenda. The No. 2 subject, at 16% of the links featured stories about the demographics of Google+ users, a new social networking site that is expected to compete with Facebook. One story found that early users were overwhelmingly male.
Another story about Google, specifically how search engines may be changing the way our memories work -- by altering the way our brains organize and store information -- came in fourth with 9% of links. The findings suggested that people have less short-term recall of information that can be accessed online.
The No. 3 story, at 9%, was about a man who hacked into his neighbor's wi-fi and tried to frame the family for various offenses. And wrapping up the top five, at 7%, was a story about an exotic animal owner who choked to death on a sex toy.
News of the World Hacking
Tweeters focused on several story lines related to the rapidly evolving hacking scandal that led to the closing of the News of the World tabloid, Murdoch's dropping his bid to buy the BSkyB television operation and the resignation of several of his key employees.
One such storyline was former News of the World reporter Robert Fisk's essay in The Independent on why he felt he had to leave the Times. Fisk wrote that editors rewrote his stories, and while Murdoch did not personally interfere, his regime changed the paper's ideology and curtailed its independence.
"Must read," tweeted FAIRmediawatch, a liberal organization that monitors the media.
One of the other stories that gained attention was about how News International initially tried to thwart the original inquiry into phone hacking. Again, responses were not supportive of Murdoch and News International.
"Things not to be shocked by: a) News International acting as if there are no laws b) Tory MPs acting as if they're spoilt five year olds," tweeted Boris Watch.
"Lots of talk about how bad it is for MPs and police cosy up to Press. But it's also bad for Press to cosy up to ANYONE," wrote fleetstreetfox, speaking of the scandal in general.*
"So #NOTW journalists can't get into my bank account i now have a security question they won't be able to answer...how do you sleep at night?" tweeted comedian Jack Whitehall.
Twitter users also linked to stories about the subpoena powers granted to the judge leading the phone hacking inquiry. And the full text from News International CEO Rebekah Brooks' resignation statement was often retweeted.
Read the full report at journalism.org.
*For the sake of authenticity, PEJ has a policy of not correcting misspellings or grammatical errors that appear in direct quotes from blog postings.