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 30th to February 5th, 2020.

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

  1. OMB filing reveals Trump involved in discussions on Ukraine aid as early as June | CNN
  2. Trump Told Bolton to Help His Ukraine Pressure Campaign, Book Says | The New York Times
  3. Vanessa Bryant requests items left by Kobe Bryant fans at Staples Center memorial| The Los Angeles Times
  4. U.S. Strikes at Leader of Qaeda in Yemen | The New York Times
  5. Opinion | A Dishonorable Senate | The New York Times

With the impeachment trial officially concluded, this may well be the last week that we see it dominate the headlines and opinion columns that are shared across social media. Although, judging by this week’s collection of top stories, it’s entirely possible that only the word “impeachment” will be going away: our top two items for the week both concerned fresh developments in the not-going-to-bed-even-if-acquittal-happens Ukraine story. Meanwhile, the one op-ed that made the top five was – you guessed it – directly impeachment-related.

Elsewhere, an undercovered story about a recent U.S. strike in Yemen snuck into the top 5 thanks to a ton of social media coverage, while an update on the passing of Kobe Bryant also made the list.

The 10 Most Used Hashtags of the Week

  1. #SOTU
  2. #FoxNews
  3. #CoronaVirus
  4. #SuperBowl
  5. #MAGA
  6. #China
  7. #Trump
  8. #IowaCaucuses
  9. #OneVoice1
  10. #Impeachment

This week’s top hashtags offer an intriguing glimpse at the nation’s priorities. For this first time this year (and, to be honest, for the first time we can remember in months), #FoxNews was not the number one hashtag of the week. The reason: the thermonuclear frenzy surrounding an election-year State of the Union (#SOTU).

Elsewhere, our attentions were captured by the #CoronaVirus and the #SuperBowl, while the Democratic primary omnishambles saw #IowaCaucuses cresting for all the wrong reasons. 

The Five Most Shared Tweets of the Week

The most-shared tweet of the week was a simple recap of an article about the scale of the tributes to Kobe Bryant – something that seems to have struck a chord with the internet at large. That tweet was followed in terms of reach by two comments about very different aspects of the President’s current legal and political woes, as well as a couple of talking points that the conservative end of the Twitterverse shared with glee.

1. The outpouring of Kobe love continues

2. A Trump accuser seeks evidence…

3. …while emails come out in a different case

4. The GOP takes a victory lap

5. Ari Fleischer alleges a double standard

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 30th, 2020 to February 5th, 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 30th, 2020 to February 5th, 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 30th, 2020 to February 5th, 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 30th, 2020 to February 5th, 2020 that received the most Retweets, ranked by number of Retweets from that date range.