Gun Rights Ruling Tops New Media Index For Week Ending July 2

The
Supreme Court's 5-4 decision bolstering gun rights was the top topic of
discussion in the blogosphere last week, according to the Project for
Excellence in Journalism's New Media Index.

The
story claimed 28% of the news links in blogs between June 28 and July 2.

In
second place was a topic near and dear to the hearts of surfers, Internet
access. Grabbing 17% of links was a BBC report that starting this month,
broadband access in Finland was a legal right.

Coming
in at number three were the unearthed remains of a whale fossil.
Tied at number four were another BBC report about a satellite image of the
globe that shows the impact of gravity, and various stories about the death of
Senator Robert Byrd.

The
index is based on data from Icerocket,
which monitors millions of blogs and imbedded links. PEJ staff compiles
the lists of links each weekday to glean the top five linked-to
stories. PEJ researchers read, watch, or listen to the posts and do a
content analysis similar to the one for the mainstream press in its weekly News
Coverage Index.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.