The Labs Report

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 January 23rd to January 29th, 2020.

 

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

 

  1. Trump Tied Ukraine Aid to Inquiries He Sought, Bolton Book Says | The New York Times
  2. Judge Andrew Napolitano: Trump’s Senate impeachment trial — What does it take to remove a president? | Fox News
  3. Bolton Was Concerned That Trump Did Favors for Autocratic Leaders, Book Says | The New York Times
  4. Opinion | John Roberts Can Call Witnesses to Trump’s Trial. Will He? | The New York Times
  5. Opinion | Bolton’s testimony would be devastating. Not even Republicans could look away. | The Washington Post

Judging by the top five news items this week, there’s been an obvious shift in terms of level of attention being paid to the impeachment proceedings against President Trump. The reason for that shift is right there in the first article, from the NY Times: John Bolton’s apparent willingness to state, on the record, that there was indeed an explicit, politically-motivated quid pro quo in the President’s decision to hold up aid to Ukraine.

All else in the top 5 stems directly from that–and also helps explain the presence of three opinion pieces in the top five. Of course, the identity of two of the op-ed writers–Fox News Legal Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano, and George Conway, husband of White House advisor Kellyanne Conway–also played a large role, particularly as both made points that seemed to bolster the case for impeachment. 

 

The 10 Most Used Hashtags of the Week

 

  1. #FoxNews
  2. #CoronaVirus
  3. #MAGA
  4. #China
  5. #Grammys
  6. #ImpeachmentTrial
  7. #Trump
  8. #AmericansWantWitnesses
  9. #Wuhan
  10. #QAnon

The #CoronaVirus received a lot of attention over the past week, and is undoubtedly responsible for the prominence of both #Wuhan and most likely #China this week as well. Elsewhere, the #Grammys managed to make an appearance despite being overwhelmed by other events in terms of the media cycle. Perhaps most interesting this week, however, is that despite the widespread shock of his untimely death, no variations of #Kobe made it into the top 10–an event that perhaps underlines the degree to which hashtags have become vessels for reinforcing campaigns or branded events, rather than arising spontaneously. 

 

The Five Most Shared Tweets of the Week

 

The week’s most-shared tweets were something of a mixed bag: a bag that included impeachment, accusations of very different kinds against a CNN anchor and an NPR host, and commentary on LGTBQ acceptance in the Korean pop music industry.

 

1. Pelosi approvingly cites a Fox analyst. Are the end times upon us?

2. A CNN piece on K-Pop goes viral overseas

3. Don vs. Don

4. A plea from Hillary Clinton

5. NPR under the microscope

Want more while you wait for next week’s edition of The Labs Report? Visit our Resource Center and get in touch with our team to find out more about how Zignal Labs can help you measure the real-time evolution of opinion to drive more powerful campaigns, products and experiences.

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Methodology: The data which drives this series is informed by a 10% sampling of Twitter activity around news stories published from January 23rd, 2020 to January 29th, 2020. 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 January 23rd, 2020 to January 29th, 2020, 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 January 23rd, 2020 to January 29th, 2020, 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 January 23rd, 2020 to January 29th, 2020 that received the most Retweets, ranked by number of Retweets from that date range.