Tiger Woods Scandal Grabs More Attention Than Jon Stewart's Coverage of Climate-Gate

When the ever evolving Tiger Woods scandal eclipses Jon Stewart's recent comments and coverage of the Climate-Gate controversy, one can't help wondering what grabs the public's attention -and why. Is the news now being reported mainly online and via Twitter and other sites?

Are traditional news outlets letting the public call the shots about what constitutes that news? If so (and if Twitter is any indication of public interest) Tiger Woods is grabbing the lion's share of attention, while issues like Climate-Gate, information that concerns environmental warming, gets a far smaller amount of interest. Global warming concerns the state of the planet but Woods seems to be of more concern to the average person - and the major news stations like ABC and NBC, at least up until now.

Just to provide some real time (RT) info, I've kept track of RT Twitter searches for both Tiger Woods and Climate-Gate as I write this article. In the time it took to write these few sentences, there have been 501 Twitter searches for Tiger Woods and just 1 additional search for Climate- Gate.

Tiger Woods, as so many know (or are searching to discover), backed out of his driveway and hit a tree. He suffered lacerations, questions from police and a ton of public scrutiny. I first reported on the Tiger Woods videotape, car crash photos and hospital records here .

Since then, alleged mistresses have come forward, including Jaimee Grubbs and Rachel Uchitel. Even though Woods is married, apparently at least one of the mistresses feels betrayed. Sound confusing? Each day, another twist to the whole Tiger Woods scandal seems to emerge, along with another round of tweets on Twitter.

Has Tiger Woods become the reality show of the internet? Do people care more about him than global warming? Has real information about global warning and possible misinformation about the data on global warming, information that could have a real impact on the average person's life, become less important than Tiger Woods and the various mistresses who've come forward after his car accident? For those who might be interested in keeping track of public interest, Twitter searches for Tiger Woods now total 1,587.

Climate Gate searches on Twitter are up to a total of 12 during the same period of time. If Twitter info is any indication, it seems people are less concerned about the fate of our planet's environmental health than the state of Tiger Woods and his various alleged affairs.

Just to add to the mix, I just added a Jon Stewart search on Twitter . Even he isn't holding his own against Tiger Woods, although he is getting plenty of praise from those who are Twittering about him, praise for dealing with the Climate-Gate issue. Current score for Tiger Woods versus Stewart? 747 tweets about Woods, compared to 7 for Stewart.

People are wondering whether Tiger Woods will lose his lucrative contracts and how much money his wife will get in the divorce settlement. Some feel angry that he may have cheated on his wife or accuse Woods of letting them down. Meanwhile, Tiger Woods has spoken out, reluctantly, about his behavior, not an easy thing for a guy who liked to keep his private life private and let fans view him mostly on the golf course doing what he did so well - play golf.

Meanwhile, getting back to Climate -Gate... Jon Stewart has apparently scooped the traditional news outlets by focusing on Climate -Gate and the controversy over data collected to prove that global warming is a reality. Stewart even went after Al Gore while questioning the wisdom of scientists who threw out data which could possibly debunk or throw into doubt the whole global warming theory.

While traditional and large news media like ABC and CBS and other stations seemingly ignored Climate -Gate, Stewart criticized the scientists. Why? Because they might have skewed data. The data didn't necessarily support global warming. So data might have been tweaked a bit. The investigation is still continuing. Data from East Anglia's Climate Research Unit was either hacked or placed online on purpose. Among the information were at least 1,000 emails from leading scientists in the field. But all of this has been overshadowed by the Tiger Woods scandal.

Oh, for those interested in keeping track..searches for Tiger Woods at this point 2,116. Climate Gate? Only 20. Jon Stewart? He's gained 8 more Tweets, with people praising him for keeping the light on Climate -Gate, although some wonder why he seemed to make fun of Al Gore, a former guest on his show.

Sources:
Tiger Woods Videotape, Hospital Records Sought as Speculation Files on Twitter, Elsewhere. Nov. 30, Associated Content, by Jan Corn here
NY Daily News.com, Dec. 2 here
Climate-Gate Heats Up But Mainstream Media Ignores Fire Storm, Fox News.com Dec. 3, here
Personal experience with Twitter searches for Tiger Woods, Jon Stewart and Climate Gate