Convention Buzz Detector -- Republicans Day 3

All PAlin, all the time

The morning after Sarah Palin delivered her prime time speech to America, the online universe was buzzing about the GOP vice presidential candidate’s performance.

Palin has been the hot topic in all of five sites we are monitoring as bellwethers of the Internet since the convention began. What is notable about Thursday morning’s sample is a pretty clear division between the two sites that are more heavily edited (The Drudge Report and Huffington Post) and those that reflect more user input (Technorati, Yahoo! News, and YouTube). The user group appeared to take a dimmer view of the Alaska Governor.

To get a sense of the online buzz during the conventions, PEJ is monitoring five online destinations each morning at 9 a.m. The sample includes the top political headline on the Drudge Report, top political headline on the Huffington Post, the political story most linked to by bloggers in the previous 48 hours, according to the blog aggregating site Technorati, the most emailed political story on Yahoo! News, and the most viewed political video on YouTube.

The most positive reaction to the speech came from the conservative Drudge Report, which conjured up Frank Sinatra with its “She Did It Her Way” headline. That linked to an AP story that began with the words “Sarah Palin delivered,” and called the speech “a star-turning performance.”

The liberal Huffington Post went with an ostensibly neutral headline, “Palin’s Playbook,” which linked to a transcript of the speech. (Parts of the text that included attacks against Obama were highlighted in boldface.)

The story users had most emailed to friends from Yahoo! News purported to fact check the GOP speeches on Wednesday. Headlined “Attacks, praise stretch truth at GOP convention,” the AP story offered some examples of what it said were criticisms of Obama and plaudits for Palin that played fast and loose with the facts.

The most linked-to item on the blogs monitored by Technorati was a story on Time.com called “Mayor Palin: A Rough Record.” Among other things, the article stated that in her run for Mayor of Wasilla, some saw Palin as a “highly polarizing political figure” who injected “hot button social issues” into what had been a gentler brand of local politics.

On YouTube, the most viewed item (with more than 840,000 views) were clips of former Ronald Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan and ex-John McCain advisor Mike Murphy discussing Palin on MSNBC, unaware that their microphones were on. Their comments—clearly not intended for public consumption—included Murphy’s assessment that McCain had made a “cynical” VP selection and Noonan’s assertion that the GOP had opted for “political [expletive] about narrative.”

PEJ will continue the Convention Buzz Detector throughout the Republican convention.

Read Buzz Detector Republicans Day 1
Read Buzz Detector Republicans Day 2