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Media's Obsession with Trump Not Supported by Data

blog.parsely.com

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Re: Media's Obsession with Trump Not Supported by Data

#2
From the article:

The fact is that in the midst of today’s 24-7 news cycle, most journalists can devote only a small amount of time to their next article, and so they often find themselves choosing topics that are convenient to write about. Imagine you’re a journalist in front of a blank screen, thinking about your next story, and faced with intense pressure to pump out content. There may be no clear breaking news on Clinton, Sanders, Cruz, or Kasich — so writing about these candidates may require you to conduct research or reach out to voters.

/endquote

I really think this is what it comes down to; this and the "access" issue, where reporters are scared of losing direct access to spokespeople and candidates who provide easy and ready-made stories and quotes. Without that, reporters are forced to, you know, report which they apparently don't have time for anymore.

Re: Media's Obsession with Trump Not Supported by Data

#3
Trump gets more page views per article than anyone but Clinton. From the article's graphs it looks like Trump generated more page views than all other candidates combined. Trump's behavior writes news articles by itself. If it takes 50% of the reporting effort to get the same number of clicks then I think the media's obsession is supported.

Re: Media's Obsession with Trump Not Supported by Data

#4
This article only continues to prove how little research is done before articles can be published.

The media is reporting on itself and its 'effects' without even taking the time to look at the data that is available through sites like Parse.ly and Google Analytics to see if their theories hold any water.

Re: Media's Obsession with Trump Not Supported by Data

#5

Trump gets more page views per article than anyone but Clinton. From the article's graphs it looks like Trump generated more page views than all other candidates combined. Trump's behavior writes news articles by itself. If it takes 50% of the reporting effort to get the same number of clicks then I think the media's obsession is supported.

That's not true. If you're looking at the interactive chart, you need to check the box that says "Show page views per article". Otherwise you're just seeing raw pageviews, and Trump has more of those because there were so many more articles written on him.

Re: Media's Obsession with Trump Not Supported by Data

#6

Trump gets more page views per article than anyone but Clinton. From the article's graphs it looks like Trump generated more page views than all other candidates combined. Trump's behavior writes news articles by itself. If it takes 50% of the reporting effort to get the same number of clicks then I think the media's obsession is supported.

That's not true. If you're looking at the interactive chart, you need to check the box that says "Show page views per article". Otherwise you're just seeing raw pageviews, and Trump has more of those because there were so many more articles written on him.

I think that's what @nimblegorilla was suggesting, and I think it actually fits with what the article was saying - the ROI on writing an article on Trump is much better than for other candidates because it's easy to write yet another article, and still get loads of pageviews for it.

In addition, Trump has significantly pushed up the total number of pageviews going to election cycle articles, even if the articles specifically about him are not as popular as the articles about Sanders, Clinton, Cruz, etc.

Re: Media's Obsession with Trump Not Supported by Data

#7
The charts under the header "Trump Does Not Drive Revenue" seem to indicate 2.5x the number of articles can be written about him (vs Clinton) without dropping the number of page views significantly below other candidates.

So if the value of a page view is worth about the same for each candidate, Trump is driving more revenue, right?

Re: Media's Obsession with Trump Not Supported by Data

#8

This article only continues to prove how little research is done before articles can be published. The media is reporting on itself and its 'effects' without even taking the time to look at the data that is available through sites like Parse.ly and Google Analytics to see if their theories hold any water.

I was thinking the same thing. The sheer irony of this article proves what little thought goes into "news" these days.

Re: Media's Obsession with Trump Not Supported by Data

#9

The charts under the header "Trump Does Not Drive Revenue" seem to indicate 2.5x the number of articles can be written about him (vs Clinton) without dropping the number of page views significantly below other candidates. So if the value of a page view is worth about the same for each candidate, Trump is driving more revenue, right?

Agreed

Re: Media's Obsession with Trump Not Supported by Data

#10

The charts under the header "Trump Does Not Drive Revenue" seem to indicate 2.5x the number of articles can be written about him (vs Clinton) without dropping the number of page views significantly below other candidates. So if the value of a page view is worth about the same for each candidate, Trump is driving more revenue, right?

That seems to be what the data is saying. I think the article is trying to paint it differently and they don't actually understand the data.
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