Welcome to this week’s edition of The Labs Report, your one-stop, data-driven shop to quickly get up to speed on the most important and influential stories of the week.

Here’s what was trending on Twitter from August 22nd to August 28th, 2019.

The Five Most-Talked-About News Stories of the Week 

  1. Barr books Trump’s hotel for $30,000 holiday party | The Washington Post
  2. Trump Allies Target Journalists Over Coverage Deemed Hostile to White House | The New York Times
  3. Barack and Michelle Obama are buying a $15 million estate in Martha’s Vineyard | The New York Post
  4. Ilhan Omar stole my husband, DC mom claims in divorce papers | The New York Post
  5. ‘Take the land’: President Trump wants a border wall. He wants it black. And he wants it by Election Day. | The Washington Post

If you were looking for a sign that summer is over, just check out the realm from which every single one of the top stories of the week originates. That’s right: the kids are (pretty much) back at school and politics are back in the public eye.

The week saw pseudo-scandals in the form of AG Barr’s holiday plans, allegations of a DC affair with a prominent freshman House Democrat and a story about a group of President Trump’s conservative allies digging up dirt to smear journalists.

The remainder of the top five is dominated by real estate (sort of). While The New York Post made hay with news of an ex-President’s fancy new home, its Washington counterpart snuck in with a late-breaking entry about the current President’s desire to accelerate progress on a wall on the Southern border with eminent domain.

If all of that has you longing for the dog days of, uh, just last week, you’re definitely not alone.

The 10 Most Used Hashtags of the Week

  1. #FoxNews
  2. #Trump
  3. #Kashmir
  4. #OneVoice1
  5. #1619Project
  6. #MAGA
  7. #SaveTheAmazon
  8. #PrayForTheAmazon
  9. #GreenNewDeal
  10. #ArmyHelpThePlanet

The environment was the major story being discussed in hashtags this week, with four out of the top 10 tags directly concerning environmental issues. The wildfires burning in the Amazon spawned two separate top 10 entries, while posts using #ArmyHelpThePlanet and #GreenNewDeal contained a large number of Amazon references as well, as people discussed potential solutions to climate-related issues. 

Elsewhere, there were few surprises. Ever-present trending hashtags #FoxNews and #Trump took the top two spots of the week, while #Kashmir made another appearance at number 3. Talking points for the left and right were largely collected under #OneVoice1 and #MAGA, respectively, while the conversation – and some controversy – around The New York Times’ #1619Project helped it stay in the top five after debuting at number two last week.

The Five Most Shared Tweets of the Week

Proving the power of Twitter to surface news that might otherwise get lost in the noise, this week’s most-shared tweet was a rarity for the number one spot – a reaction to a story that didn’t make the top five news articles of the week.

One story that did feature prominently, however, was the scoop about William Barr’s planned holiday party at a Trump hotel – to which reactions took two of the top five spots. (Spoiler alert: neither of the reactions were positive.)

One slight surprise, given the sheer volume of commentary around the story over the weekend, is that only one tweet about the passing of conservative icon David Koch made the top five. Even more surprising is that the final tweet in our roundup somehow managed to hold on to its fifth-place spot for a second consecutive week, despite being – as we pointed out last week – a much-recycled copy of a tweet dating back to January of 2018.

1. No vaccines at the border

2. Swalwell wants Barr impeached

3. An obituary addendum

4. Insert your own “the AG has a different Barr” joke here

5. A second week in the top five for this “borrowed” tweet 

 

Want more data-driven insights while you wait for next week’s edition of The Labs Report? Check out our Story of a Hashtag blog post to learn more about the rise of #MoscowMitch, find out which of the four major American sports leagues dominates conversation on Twitter (and why) or read “From Tradition to Traction: The New Rules of Financial Services Communications,” our latest special report that explores how impact-driven metrics can help you supercharge the growth and reputation of your institution.

Be sure to also visit our Resource Center and get in touch with our team to find out more about how Zignal Labs can help you build and protect your brand.

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Methodology: The data which drives this series, provided by the Zignal Labs platform, is informed by a 10% sampling of Twitter activity around news stories published from August 22nd to August 28th, 2019. Stories are published by 25 of the most highly-read publications across the country (based on circulation data), including: ABC News, Bloomberg, The Boston Globe, CBS News, The Chicago Tribune, CNN, The Dallas Morning News, The Denver Post, Fox News, The Houston Chronicle, Huffington Post, The LA Times, MSNBC, NBC News, The New York Daily News, The New York Post, The New York Times, Newsday, Reuters, The Seattle Times, The Star Tribune, The Tampa Bay News, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
The “Top 5 Most-Talked-About Stories of the Week” are the five stories from the above-mentioned publications that received the most mentions across Twitter from August 22nd to August 28th, 2019, ranked by number of mentions from that date range.
The “Ten Most Used Hashtags of the Week “ are the ten hashtags that were mentioned the most on Twitter around Tweets related to news stories published by the above-mentioned publications from August 22nd to August 28th, 2019, ranked by number of mentions from that date range.
The “Top Five Most Shared Tweets of the Week” are the five Tweets, related to news stories published by the above-mentioned publications from August 22nd to August 28th, 2019, that received the most Retweets, ranked by number of Retweets from that date range.