Wikileaks Leads on Blogs

Espousing a unique mix of politics, technology, free speech and transparency, WikiLeaks has captured the attention from bloggers in a way few stories ever do.

It has been a focus of social media conversation for three weeks this month alone, with a discussion that moved from one dimension to the next. After centering on political blame, the value of exposing government secrets, and the importance of a free press, the debate took on yet a new angle last week. For the week of December 20-24, more than a third (35%) of the news links on blogs were about the controversy, making it the No. 1 subject, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Most of the conversation last week, however, focused on an investigation launched by the CIA. But rather than discussing the consequences of such an inquiry, bloggers centered on the name of the panel - the WikiLeaks Task Force - which resulted in the acronym WTF - a phrase more commonly known for its usage as part of Internet slang.