National Public Radio suggests that bloggers, particularly the Talking Points Memo site, and not the mainstream media, are driving the U.S. Attorneys story that has threatened the Bush Administration with subpeonas and the taint of scandal. Over at DataMining, Matt Hurst shows the flow of keyword occurrence on the topic is increasing rather than, as the White House must hope, falling off.
Source: BlogPulse
So, I decided to take a look at what is driving the story in BuzzLogic's tools. And, indeed, NPR's analysis is correct. TPM is the biggest influencer amongst blogs because it has published the #3, #4, #5, #6, #12, #19, #20, #21, #30 and #34 most influential articles about the story. But it is not the top influencer in terms of acting as a source on the story by a long shot.
As you can see in the screenshot below, the top TPM-published story, published on March 16th, is lightly connected, but has links from popular sites that are focused on this issue. Because the site has published frequently on this topic, however, its light reach through many stories has propelled it to the top of the blogging world's list of influencers calling for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' resignation and subpeonas for White House aides. Many other blogs are involved in this dialog, some more than most (see more below).
Source: BuzzLogic
Instead, a mainstream news story, McClatchy News Service's March 1, 2007 article, is the most influential single piece of media about this topic because many more sites are using it as the source "facts" when talking about the subpeonas issued by Congress for testimony from several of the dismissed U.S. attorneys. More than 300 postings--most of which are very popular--point to this, the most influential posting.
Source: BuzzLogic
If we examine the rest of the top influencer group, bloggers dominate. In addition to TPM, the Swamp blog at the Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, MyDD.com, Marc Cooper, The Carpetbagger Report, and Think Progress fill out the top 20.
NPR is correct that bloggers are driving the story, but it is a combination of blogs and mainstream media that is supporting the story as source data and in terms of keeping up the conversational momentum. Reach remains important to a story's becoming viral and it is notable that this group of bloggers in the case of a national story does not rely on familiar names like The New York Times and The Washington Post as primary sources.
