the buzz log
The Six-Month Wait for Governor Sanford's Emails
South Carolina governor Mark Sanford seemed to take every step to make revelations about his indiscreet affair global news:
- Be MIA on Father's Day (and seven days total).
- Don't alert staffers you're not showing up to work.
- Throw in an Appalachian Trail red herring.
- Have a weepy news conference admitting wrongdoing.
- Be the former chairman of the Republican Governors Association and another 2012 self-imploding GOP possible.
In the huge outbreak of Sanford searches from the past 7 days, look-ups for "first lady jenny sanford" pushed her into the top 500 searches (bypassing her husband), as well as quirkier terms like "sanford and son," "don't cry for me argentina," and "appalachian trail map."
Now the newest round of searches: "sanford emails." The release of the rusty Romeo's electronic messages to his Argentine paramour Maria Belen Shapur have sent readers gagging and chortling at the same time (not an easy feat). Newsweek felt compelled to warn, in italics, about the super cheesy factor.
So how did the South Carolina paper, The State, get those emails so fast? Crackling investigative reporting? Hacking? RSS feed to Naughty Political Notes? Actually, according to the New York Times, the newspaper had these emails since December...yes, for six months. Naturally, reporters wanted to confirm the messages were real, so they sent an email...to Ms. Shapur. Exactly what they asked her, for instance "are you one that gives magnificently gentle kisses," was not revealed.
Of course, The State made up for that lapse by sending its reporter, based on an anonymous tip, to greet the governor when he landed in Atlanta. Her gung-ho account, on The State's website, includes her parenthetical musing, "I always will wonder if the story would have broken if I had failed to catch him in the airport." Maybe if she had tried sending another email.
Letter Imperfect: Common Misspelled Searches
Elegiacal. Vivisepulture. Appoggiatura. Yeah, those seem tough to spell. But what about Susan Boyle, the name of our president, and the trademark of a U.S. train system?
Elementary school kids the world over are gathering this week for the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Thanks to documentaries, plays, movies, and the sheer spectacle of kids dismantling words bigger than the average person's entire vocabulary, the Bee even gets coverage by the likes of Sports Illustrated. Plus, lots of online attention: "spelling bee" terms have seen a collective 3,304% increase on Yahoo! Search, with a heartening chunk fueled by kids under 12.
All we have to say to the competitors, besides good luck, is: Wait until you grow up, when you'll have to deal with hundreds and thousands of new names and concepts every day. Forget spelling the name of the late Sri Lankan rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran: In the Search box, misspellers have savaged the first and last name of our own U.S. president ("barack oboma," "barak obama"), mangled the identity of radio show host Rush Limbaugh ("rush limba," "rush limbaug"), and abused the names of most of the "American Idol" contestants ("adam lamberg" for Adam Lambert). Good thing "Idol" voters just had to text numbers.
Hope—and good intentions—are not lost: Always spiking are searches for "spelling games," "spell check," "spell check technology," and oodles of dictionaries, both English and other. Below is a roundup of words, both recent and perennial, that can pose a struggle, and links to their proper spelling.
Recent Orthographic Abuses of the English Language on Yahoo!, Past 30 Days
- Swan Flu (for Swine Flu)
- Susan Boil (for "Britain's Got Talent" contender Susan Boyle)
- Brack Obama (for U.S. President Barack Obama)
- Sonia Sotomeyer (for Supreme Court justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor)
- Rachel Ray (for Food Network host Rachael Ray)
- Paperview boxing (for cable programming pay-per-view boxing)
- Amtrack (for train system Amtrak)
- Wallmart (for retailer Wal-Mart)
- Farrah Faucet (for actress Farrah Fawcett)
- Rod Steward (for singer Rod Stewart)
- Arlene Specter (for Senator Arlen Specter)
- “Dancing With the Starts” (for ABC reality competition Dancing With the Stars)
- Bea Author” (for the late comedian Bea Arthur)
- Brittany Spears (for singer Britney Spears)
- Chris Allen (for “American Idol” winner Kris Allen)
- Configure worm (for computer virus Conficker worm)
- Mysapce (for MySpace)
Buzz Year in Review: Top Buzzed Stories in 2008
You read it. You liked it. You buzzed it up.
In the remarkable mix of stories that circulated through Y! Buzz in 2008, people voted on the ones they thought were particularly important, funny, or just worth reading. Let's review the 10 that garnered the most attention—and votes—in 2008.
Mom takes control of her health
A busy mother of five finally made time to change her life and lose weight (nearly 150 pounds), partly to help her husband cope with diabetes. The story inspired many to vote up this heartwarming tale of health to the top of the Buzz heap.
Not coming to a Best Buy near you
Audiophiles voted up a story on the renewed popularity of old-school vinyl. But what would set a real record collector apart from the posers would be landing one of the rare albums featured in Esquire's slideshow. A John Lennon rarity for a whopping $150,000, anyone? Makes Bob Dylan look like a downright steal at only $40,000, although "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" is considered the most valuable U.S. (versus British) album.
An Olympic year
The Beijing Olympics this summer captivated a huge audience and made us appreciate the phenomenal man-fish Michael Phelps, and impolitely question some very young ladies about their age. Here are the stories loved and buzzed:
• They stuck the landings. They balanced and tumbled. And they won gold. But were they eligible to be in the Olympics in the first place? Questions about the tiny Chinese gymnasts arose after a Chinese media outlet reported some of the Chinese team members' ages as younger than 16, then took down the story.
• Questions also arose about the amazing medal-man, U.S. swimmer Phelps. The 100-meter butterfly race was so close that the results came down to a photo finish, and Phelps fans buzzed up the story that proved he really did deserve that seventh gold medal (out of eight total).
From kid superstars to childlike acts
Another amateur didn't fare so well, after a nine-year-old with a 40-mile-per-hour fastball had opposing teams calling foul. According to the Associated Press, the baseball prodigy was told he was way out of his league, and pulled off the mound.
Among so-called professionals, Michigan basketball coach Kevin Borseth exhibited a meltdown of epic proportions after his team's loss. Bad behavior continued with Dallas Mavericks star Josh Howard, who had to apologize for his national anthem diss. And basketball superstar Shaquille O'Neal continued to raz rival Kobe Bryant, this time in song.
Year of the woman candidate
While the election ended in a historic result, there sure were lots of firsts throughout the endless campaign for president. Hillary Clinton, the first major female candidate, gave the eventual winner, Barack Obama, the run of his life. But maybe the best gift of the long race for president was the welcome comic relief. Jack Nicholson's campaign ad for Clinton endorsed her with tied-together clips from his most memorable movies. Then there was Sarah Palin, the first Republican woman to be part of a national ticket. Political pundits took different approaches to these two women, and "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart picked up on some of the mixed messages.
All in all, a memorable year filled with memorable stories. What can we say, except: Keep on buzzing!
Most Buzzed Stories of 2008
- Mother of 5 finally takes time for her own fitness (USA Today)
- Shaq takes a freestyle swipe at Kobe (Yahoo! Sports)
- The Most Expensive Albums of All Time (Esquire)
- State-media story fuels questions on gymnast's age (Yahoo! Sports)
- Jack Nicholson Films Ad For Hillary Clinton (Huffington Post)
- Amazing proof Phelps won (Yahoo! Sports)
- 9-year-old too good to pitch (Yahoo! Sports)
- Michigan Basketball Coach Kevin Borseth's On Camera Meltdown (Huffington Post)
- Jon Stewart Hits Karl Rove, Bill O'Reilly, Dick Morris On Sarah Palin Hypocrisy (Huffington Post)
- Star sorry for anthem diss (Yahoo! Sports)
A Woman's Place: Anchor Chair
While some have argued that Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton faced a sexist press, this election season has also seen the rise of some major female media stars, who are rising in Buzz.
Talking LiberallyThe latest addition to MSNBC's lineup, Rachel Maddow cut her partisan punditry teeth on Air America radio. The left-wing host now follows Keith Olberman's "Countdown." While her program kicked off in August, she has managed to double the cable network's audience for the 9 p.m. time slot. According to Politico, the program beats out "Larry King Live" on CNN for the all-important 25-54 demographic. Searches on "The Rachel Maddow Show" have spiked over 150% in the last 30 days. As Gawker gushed, "She is seemingly the most normal and charming and totally well-adjusted cable news host in America." The rising star seems to be taking success in stride: She reportedly does not own a TV.
What Can Brown Do for You?
While Campbell Brown was having a hard time being heard over the shout-fest of Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olberman, she made a move and found her voice. She called out the McCain campaign as sexist, and called attention to her show. As the Washington Post reported, "From the moment she urged John McCain's campaign to 'free Sarah Palin' to talk to journalists, Brown has seemed like more of a player." As Brown has discovered, opinion often breaks through the quiet of straight news.
On Being Katie
There's no question that Katie Couric, anchor of CBS Evening News, has hit her stride. As David Carr noted, "The election season has been very good to a woman who seems to be benefiting from her status as an outsider in terms of gender and history." Her news-making series of interviews skewering Sarah Palin (and the "SNL" spoof thereafter), her disarming apology from Michael Dukakis at the Democratic convention for letting George Bush win, and her daily webcasts have given the third-place network newscast new life. She's certainly captured Buzz, with an almost 800% surge in look-ups over the last 30 days.
Maybe we are seeing what the New York Observer termed a "femocracy." But will the buzz last longer than an election cycle? We'll see if anyone wants news from anyone after that.
Watching the Watchdogs
Newsmakers and newsbreakers, beware: The media watchdogs are getting savvier ... and funnier.
The 2008 election fracas has proven so far to be a banner year for women, minorities, news junkies, political websites, "Saturday Night Live," and comedians poking fun at the entire process. In fact, if Wall Street had decided to buy stock in Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, America might not be in this economic mess.
CNN and Comedy Central are finally cashing in on the electorate's inclination to laugh at others, including the media itself. "D.L. Hughley Breaks the News" puts one of the original kings of comedy on the Cable News Network Saturday nights. News about the "News" got anticipatory searches pumping for Hughley, boosting his online profile into our top 60,000 search terms. In a TV Guide Q&A, Hughley calls it a different sort of late-night talk show with less celebs and more interesting real folk like the sheriff who refused to evict people from foreclosed homes. He also points out that he'll be CNN's first intentional comedian. (Sorry, Wolf Blitzer, you had your chance.)
His Oct. 25 premiere lags just 10 days behind David Alan Grier, one of the original "In Living Color" kings who wasn't a Wayan brother. The presidential Democratic nomination of Barack Obama spurred Comedy Central to move up the news satire "Chocolate News" from its originally scheduled 2009 debut to October 15. Grier's slant—which the Hollywood Reporter lauds as "TV's first black-supremacist parody"—is less concerned with real news than its comic essence and spoofing media, like a bit on biracial Siamese twins. Searches from the day of its premiere pushed Grier's buzz past Stewart or Colbert, and his show's buzz higher than "The Daily Show" or "The Colbert Report."
While Hughley and Grier latch onto the funnybone, armchair watchdogs may soon be able to literally highlight media bias on their own: The New York Times profiled SpinSpotter's plug-in, which allows readers to insert red flags into an online article's objectional passages and explain why in a pop-up box.
Many kinks still need to be worked out, but the Seattle company hopes to make money by selling the service ... to reporters, politicians and public relations. On second thought, someone put a watchdog on the watchdog.
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ford 400 | Breakout! |
| 2 | Indonesia Ferry | Breakout! |
| 3 | Jordan Chandler | 3481% |
| 4 | Evan Chandler | 2322% |
| 5 | American Music Awards | 1841% |
| 6 | John F. Kennedy | 1529% |
| 7 | Turkey Stuffing Recipes | 1361% |
| 8 | Liam Hemsworth | 1172% |
| 9 | Lou Dobbs | 1142% |
| 10 | Hendrick Motorsports | 888% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black Friday | +340 | 1290 |
| 2 | NFL | +489 | 670 |
| 3 | Jennifer Lopez | +451 | 515 |
| 4 | New Moon | -67 | 250 |
| 5 | American Music Awards | +236 | 249 |
| 6 | UFC | -36 | 239 |
| 7 | Miley Cyrus | +66 | 169 |
| 8 | Hulu | -11 | 154 |
what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
For more detailed information, visit our FAQ.