Clinton Hype Outhypes Hype

“Clinton Mania Set To Rule” News 24 in South Africa shouts. The Miami Herald warns of the “Clinton Blitz.” “Love him or hate him,” the story begins, “you won’t be able to avoid Bill Clinton this week.” With his 60 Minutes interview on Sunday, and the release of his book tomorrow, the conventional media wisdom has been that Clinton’s memoirs would spell the second coming of, well, Ronnie Reagan.

To determine if there was any truth to the hype (as opposed to just hype to the hype?), I consulted the trusty Newsmap (the visual translation of the Google News Aggregator which “sizes” the most prominent news story based on number of related links.)

Taking a “snapshot” of the top national news stories today at approximately 6 p.m. (pacific time), what showed up was nothing close to the predicted Clinton tsunami. In fact, the only story that even made the map (which I’ve highlighted in blue for the purpose of clarity) not only made specific reference to the whole story as “hype,” but also indicated that the hype had already reached it’s climax. (Whether a pun was also intended, I’m not sure.)