Not that it counts for much but who are the most influential political media figures? It's an interesting question, one that for the most part is hardly a provable assertion. How can one measure influence, after all?
You probably can't but you can at least measure how famous (or infamous) a pundit is. New York Magazine attempted to do just that by creating an index that looks at a given commentator's mentions in Google, blogs, newspapers/magazines, TV shows and then computes a "popularity score" based on the rankings for each category.
The top figure in the survey? Former Bush top aide Karl Rove with a score of 67.79. He's followed very closely by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh with 67.35.
Third in the list is liberal comedian Jon Stewart of the Comedy Central's "Daily Show." Fourth and fifth place belong to Fox News Channel and syndicated radio host Bill O'Reilly, and MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews.
Top ten table is below. Check out the full list here. Hat tip: TVNewser.
While this survey is hardly scientific, I'm not exactly sure you could say it's completely inaccurate. Would love to see their methodology.
| Name | Blogs | TV | Debates | The Popularity Score! | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Karl Rove | 4.93 mil. | 71,367 | 3,813 | 778 | 0 | 67.79 |
| 2. Rush Limbaugh | 5.44 mil. | 71,011 | 4,125 | 585 | 0 | 67.35 |
| 3. Jon Stewart | 6.39 mil. | 62,901 | 3,957 | 3342 | 0 | 62.77 |
| 4. Bill O’Reilly | 4.61 mil. | 53,105 | 2,046 | 1,122 | 0 | 59.23 |
| 5. Chris Matthews | 2.86 mil. | 40,750 | 1,754 | 47 | 2 | 47.31 |
| 6. G. Stephanopoulos | 527,000 | 15,993 | 1,255 | 777 | 3 | 41.07 |
| 7. Stephen Colbert | 3.8 mil. | 44,933 | 2,622 | 174 | 0 | 40.30 |
| 8. Chris Wallace | 759,000 . | 12,307 | 1,023 | 293 | 4 | 36.01 |
| 9. Sean Hannity | 2.36 mil. | 27,114 | 1,174 | 796 | 0 | 34.87 |
| 10. Keith Olbermann | 2.38 mil. | 39,532 | 942 | 323 | 1 | 33.85 |
