Friday, December 04, 2009

Measuring the media

The TWI for "Climategate" has dropped from 9693 last night to 9137 at 11:00 Hrs GMT this morning (29,400,000 – 3218), suggesting that there has been marginally more media interest. Incidentally, I tried the index out on a few blogs to see if they were gaining any significant media traction from their work on the issue.

Bishop Hill, who has made much of the running, turns out what appears to be a creditable 4357 (183000 – 42). But then you discover that there is a town in Illinois bearing the same name. The adjusted figure (CRU approved) with the addition of "blog" to the search string is actually 6950 (55,600 – 8).

Stateside, even one of the giants, Michelle Malkin only delivers 4272 (987000 – 231) and much of her coverage is not on "Climategate".

Of the specialist blogs, Watts Up With That fares very badly, with 33,824 (1,150,000 – 34), suggesting that when the media does take notice, it wants to "own" the issue and is loathe to give credit to the blogs which have been leading the way.

With a substantially lower web profile, Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit does better, at 2,621 (152000 – 58). By comparison, though, his putative nemesis, RealClimate scores extraordinarily well, coming in with 830 (332,000 – 400), almost certainly suggesting a massive warmist bias in the media.

On the other hand, our own James Delingpole outshines the warmists, at 809 (90,600 – 112), but that reflects a low web profile. He beats Christopher Booker though who, for all his MSM profile with his own column, delivers a relatively modest 1661 (103,000 – 62), faring marginally less well than Christopher Monckton at 1505 (140,000 - 93).

Demonstrating the effect of being at the centre of a media storm, however, "Phil Jones CRU" gets 62 (138,000 – 2225), indicating that he is a tad over-exposed – a sentiment with which he would doubtless heartily agree, especially as he rather puts Al Gore in the shade as the warmist's poster boy. He delivers a "mere" 399 (2,120,000 - 5,317). Even now, he must be working on hiding the decline.

CLIMATEGATE THREAD