AP Shocker: Pope's death generates 10x the stories as Bush's "reelection"

:eyes: Believe it or not. :sarcasm:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Pope-Internet.html?pagewanted=print&position=

April 4, 2005
Pope's Death Spurs 35, 000 Stories in a Day
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 2:33 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- Major news media around the world devoted 10 times as many stories to Pope John Paul II's death as they did to the re-election of President Bush, according to an analysis released Monday.

The Global Language Monitor, which scans the Internet for the use of specific words or phrases using Roman characters, found 35,000 new stories on the pope in the 24 hours after his death Saturday.

That compares with about 3,500 new stories on Bush within a day of his re-election and 1,000 new stories on former President Reagan within a day of his death last year.
...

Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language, said the jump reflected the Roman Catholic pontiff's influence.

...

:shrug:

The Pope is the leader of 1 billion people and has been Pope for 26 years.

Of course it's a bigger news story.

If they want comparable events, they should have compared the Pope's death to Reagan's - I bet the numbers were a lot closer.

The point is, as candy noted above, the Pope is a global guy. Reagan and Bush are local.

The influence of any POTUS, one we like or one we hate, is very much global. Try telling Iraq that Bush is a local guy.

But if he dies out of office... so what? If he gets "reelected?" Big deal.

Their claim that Reagan's death resulted in only 1,000 stories the next day is ludicrous. Hell, CNN probably had that many on their web site alone.

I'd be interested if you were able to. I doubt you will, though. I think only the American media were obsessed with Reagan. The whole world can't shut about the Pope.

the BellSouth Classic golf tournament already today - and it's only 3:30pm EST.

If a GOLF TOURNAMENT (a non-major one, at that) generates 800 stories on the internet alone in one day, the 1,000 figure for Reagan's death is quite obviously ridiculously low.

I'm not sure if Nexis counts original stories only, or if it, like Google, miscounts reprints of AP and other newservice stories as "original."

I can't get any other news from either cable or network channels, especially CNN and the other cable news. HELLLLOOOOO!!! There are OTHER things happening in the world too, you know, that we'd like to hear about. Like the Abu Ghraib prison attack, for one. I never would have known about that had it not been for internet news, because my local news didn't have anything and neither did the cable or network news or even most of the newspapers I saw. I'm really getting sick of this.

I'm glad Pope John Paul II met w/Bush shortly before dying. He played that media card much better than Rove ever could. I can't get out of my mind the picture of the Pope lecturing Bush on the horrors of war.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3773545.stm

The Pope has pressured George W Bush over what he called recent "deplorable events" in Iraq, as anti-war protesters set off flares in the Italian capital.

The Pope described the situation in the Middle East as one of "grave unrest".

Peace!

he was a snooze in life, and he's even more boring now.