Popular Elsewhere
14:46 UK time, Monday, 8 August 2011
A look at the stories ranking highly on various news sites.
While a re-cap of the weekend's rioting is popular on other sites, Daily Mail readers click on . The paper asks "Could they cancel the carnival?" The article claims that there "were fears today that the West Indian event [the Notting Hill Carnival] on the August bank holiday could even be cancelled in a desperate bid to prevent more riots". That's not all. The article goes on to claim that "the outbreak of violence has raised fears about whether the Metropolitan Police would have adequate resources to cope during the Olympics if there were a similar attack during the 2012 Games". It doesn't, however, say who is expressing these fears.
The dilemma of writing what the readers will click on - an explanation of this weekend - and an urge not to give an explanation in case it is jumping the gun has led to Dan Hodges to open with an apology for his article which has been read the most by New Statesman readers. "Like most of those leaping on the flaming bandwagon of Tottenham, I have no idea what lay behind the weekend's disturbances" starts the New Statesman's most popular article before a further 800 words on the problems with race relations.
A similar apology is made by psychology professor Drew Westen in the New York Times' most popular article. It asks "" (Although the URL suggests it means specifically what happened to Obama's passion). Given her academic background, the reader may think they are onto a promise of some analysis of the US president's mental state. The apology for the absence of this comes later than Hodges' apology - it's not until half way through the fourth page of her opinion piece that she declares "as a practicing psychologist with more than 25 years of experience, I will resist the temptation to diagnose at a distance". Then, relief comes when she promises "but as a scientist and strategic consultant I will venture some hypotheses." Phew. These hypotheses include what she calls a "charitable" one - that he is trying to gain the centrist vote and a not so charitable one that he has a "character defect that might not have been so debilitating at some other time in history".
Never mind phone hacking at the Murdoch empire, screams the Daily Beast's most popular article, lets hear it from . They have the first interview with "self-styled Detective to the Stars" Anthony Pellicano. His wire tapping wasn't to get stories for the press but was against stars' enemies, sometimes journalists, to get material to blackmail with. Currently doing 15 years in prison after being found guilty on 76 charges the Daily Beast says Pellicano calls the phone-hacking saga kid stuff.
