Gannon/Guckert - Tracking the reach of this scandal

[KurtNYC]

I have undertaken a semi-scientific study of how this story continues to evolve. Froomkin did a great job of assembling a kind of timeline of MSM coverage of this story going into last weekend which can be seen here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14148-2005Feb10.html

For my part, I continue to watch how and if this story is covered in the MSM and the internet. A simple part of tracking the coverage of this story on the internet is Googling the combination of "Gannon" and "Guckert". My aim is to find pages which were created after February 9 and which should therefore be attributed to the growth of this story. A page which has both names on it has a high probability of discussing the fraud which was perpetrated on the news buying public. It may also include sites which for instance, have long lists of names such as class lists, genealogy websites, etc. Whatever the number of such sites included in my numbers, it does not impact the growth of the story data because genealogy sites are far less active than blog and news sites. In other words, I am assuming that few genealogy webpages with the words guckert and gannon on them are created in a weeks time.

Here is some of the data so far.

Sunday, 2/13 27,600 pages returned
Monday, 2/14 45,700 pages returned
Tuesday 2/15 62,200 pages returned

That is explosive. A search specifically for "Jeff Gannon" (in quotes) returns 165,000 pages so the number of pages which are likely mention the scandal is becoming a larger percentage of all references to "Jeff Gannon" daily.

From where I am sitting, the MSM ignores this story at their own expense. There is a feeding frenzy going on and if the MSM won't feed their audience, they should expect their audience to start eating elsewhere.

Any thoughts on my method appreciated.

[Botany]

1. The media is not ignoring mangate ......

...... Rove is trying to kill it.

Keep the pot boiling.

[rodeodance]

3. I think you are right about Rove trying to bury it

[SpiralHawk]

2. Interesting sample, kurt

Thanks for tracking the growth and development of this. I do feel there is lots more to come.


"The nation has progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependency;
from dependency back into bondage."
- Alexander Fraser Tytler (1748-1813)
"The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic"

[tuvor]

4. A couple of days ago, I started tracking "Jeff Gannon" on Google News

Two evenings ago (the day the AmericaBlog story broke), there were 353 stories. As of right now, there are 390.

Make of that what you will.

[peacetalksforall]

5. Yes...this is worthwhile. I think what is also needed is a timeline...

including the first of the Plame dates - mixed with the Gannon dates to show how this all came together, plus the dates the WH was confronted about Gannon/G, plus the dates for the establishment of GOPUSA and Talon. I have the feeling that we will see something that we may be missing or we will have something that can be used in the future that will help to counter what the MSMs are told to tell us because it is all interwoven.

[KharmaTrain]

6. If The Story Stays "Gannon"

All this frenzy will fade very soon...he's just a "mule" in this cartel. All the frenzy about this guy's mighty-whiteys is giving many in the corporate media and with similar knowledge of "Gannon", who paid him, who send him to the J-School and how we got all that access.

The media would love to see all but the sex side of this story die right now and then they'll play with it a night, cast this as a partisan witch-hunt by left wing "blog people" and try all they can to dismiss it. If the story is only sex and there isn't a trail linking "Gannon" to others in this regime or in the media, it will die and this regime and it's right wing hate propaganda operation will be totally unchecked.

[KoKo]

7. My only question would be, how many of the stories are "repeats."

Sometimes a Google Search will show the same story, sometimes even re-headlined at different websites. If you are doing a search you can often think that you've got five different stories on your subject when in fact it's one story picked up and changed in the title a little that makes the rounds of the internet sites.

That would be my only caution in your large numbers. I know that an article by Kurtz last week was linked to the original WaPo, but the Chicago Tribute used the same story by Kurtz but with a totally different title. Both articles would have come up in a search and looked like they were different, when in fact they both came from Kurtz.

That would be my only caution...that it would take you so much time to parse through all the hits to make sure they aren't the same article.

But, I have to hope this story goes further than we've seen so far...My hometown newspaper hasn't picked up on it at all and it's not totally conservative.

Thanks for doing this...good luck.