Headlines that warm your alumnus heart

Sidebar: Wondering about the legalities of a mandatory survey triggering letters home. Maybe we’re off base on that?

Not making this up – it’s really called newshole.

PEJ’s weekly News Coverage Index examines the news agenda of 52 different outlets from five sectors of the media: print, online, network TV, cable and radio. (See List of Outlets.) The weekly study, which includes some 1,000 stories, is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics the media are covering, the trajectories of that media narrative and differences among news platforms. The percentages are based on “newshole,” or the space devoted to each subject in print and online and time on radio and TV.

The topic beat out other stories for the week, including the economy, Middle East unrest and the 2012 election GOP pregaming:

Coverage of the presidential campaign dropped last week, filling 8% of the newshole compared with 12% the previous week. Last week’s coverage included former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum’s entry into the GOP field and the mass defections of staffers from Newt Gingrich’s troubled campaign.

The index is part of Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. PEJ said Weiner is the fourth-most covered – err, uncovered? – erected elected official story since measurements began in 2007.

Measurement of the news, perverts.

Whoops! Just an oversight. I’m sure there’s nothing else questionable! Just to be sure, let’s check the story’s lead:

The closet door became unhinged lately when a number of gay men in sports decided to turn the knob and hold a public liberation.

Maybe it’s time to retire literary uses of the closet metaphor.

Reuters | Tired Gay succumbs to Dix in 200 meters

Click image to increase size

Just for comparison, here’s the International version at the same time:

This is rivaled tonight by the most popular stories module (U.S. edition) on an article on the Buffalo Continental crash, seen below:

In case you’re wondering, CNNi”s edition, below:

Way to go, America. (Sorry, Chris Brown?)

Behold a USATODAY.com article aboutJersey tourism types saying MTV’s show doesn’t properly depict its shore. Here’s a screen capture of the page, though the article is irrelevant here.

Notice anything a little .. risqué?

Didn’t catch it? Let’s examine closer.

The video depicts a 13-year-old girl who, in fact, licked a poll outside in Washington State, proceeding to get her tongue stuck to it.

I say the thumbnail crop and teaser text suggest a different story …

CNN has their coverage of his coverage, linked via CNN.com’s homepage today:

Even CNN is noting the re-occurrence in a semi-snarky headline.

One thing is for sure: If Google continues this trend of downtime the webizens of the world will collectively lift their index fingers and say – nay demand - that their priceless and valued midday personal conversations not face oppression from the evil tyranny of sporadic tech outages! We will rise above to an uninterrupted day of e-mailing!

Or we’ll STFU, actually accomplish something and then wait for Gmail to come back online.