Sunday, October 31, 2010

CNN's Dana Bash' Unexplained Lisa Murkowski Tweet Causes Internet Storm

CNN's Dana Bash has some explaining to do. Her tweet about Alaska U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski caused the Senator's name to be retweeted so much, it's now the second hottest topic on Google Trends as of this writing. Used properly, Twitter can be a force for good or bad. In this case, the bad is for Lisa Murkowski and the good may be for Joe Miller if this little firestorm grows.

On Twitter, Dana sent out this tweet 54 minutes ago as of this writing:




DanaBashCNN Dana Bash
Woah. Lisa murkowski just made really clear to our drew griffin in alaska republicans can't count on her to be w them.


Now Dana (photo at left) didn't provide a link to a video or text of an interview as part of her tweet, she just tweeted that statement.

The tweet was red meet to rabid Tea Party Movement supporters just two days before the 2010 MidTerm Elections. It was retweeted 14 times directly by followers (as of this writing), but many, many more times by follower of those followers, and so on. The result is a sea of retweets helping to create the content that meets the search demand for "Lisa Murkowski."

But just what Lisa Murkowski said was never explained by Dana Bash, and it must be. Google News has no supporting information that Senator Murkowski's going to, essentially, jump ship on the Republican Party. Was that Dana's interpretation?

If it was, Dana, as a political news reporter, should be really careful how she shares her take on politics. It could be interpreted as support for the Tea Party.   The Senator's challenger, Tea Party-backed Joe Miller, is reportedly behind in the polls.  Dana's tweet is the kind of spark that could turn it around for him, which is why it was so careless for Bash not to explain it.

Stay tuned.

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