Deflategate Hasn’t Received More Attention than Aaron Hernandez
Photo via AP
Former New England Patriots tight-end and convicted murderer Aaron Hernandez was indicted Monday on witness intimidation charges stemming from an alleged 2012 double murder in the South End, for which Hernandez is already set to stand trial.
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s office says Hernandez shot an unnamed witness in the face in February 2013, “and left him to die on the side of the road in Riviera Beach, Florida, after the witness made a remark about the homicides.”
The latest Hernandez indictment comes as Patriots Nation anxiously awaits NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s punishment for quarterback Tom Brady for his role in DeflateGate after the Wells Report said he was “at least generally aware” of two Patriots locker room attendants’ “inappropriate activities.” A defensive Pats fan-base has even begun to suggest that the media has paid more attention to under-inflated footballs than a man killing another man execution-style beside a North Attleboro industrial park.
https://twitter.com/ComedyRusso/status/597441447684644865
Deflate gate is getting as much attention as the Aaron Hernandez murder
— Sam Dodd (@SammyBoy912) May 10, 2015
https://twitter.com/JenelleCadigan/status/596435704995020800
I think #DeflateGate is getting more coverage then when Hernandez was killing people #Patriots
— Alex Barker (@Dr_Barker970) January 23, 2015
@NFL345 @richeisen haven't seen this much coverage for Hernandez, Rice, and Peterson combined NFL is confused! #deflategate #doublestandard
— J Con (@jcon1509) January 23, 2015
https://twitter.com/Pete_BBS/status/558364542091415552
Compare amount of ink spilled on "deflategate" vs. amount of coverage of Hernandez.
— Richard Robbins (@rich1) April 15, 2015
Consider it done, Richard! Using two Google tools, we can measure both output from news organizations, as well as search traffic by term. On Google News, which aggregates headlines from news sources worldwide, “deflate gate” returns just 126,000 hits, while “Aaron Hernandez” shows 1,350,000. Using Google Trends, we can compare search traffic:
At the height of each scandal’s relevance, more people searched for “Aaron Hernandez” than “deflate gate.”
It seems #DeflateGate coverage has surpassed Aaron Hernandez & Tsarnaev combined. Yup. Deflated footballs > murder & bombings. #Patriots
— Aaron Gouveia (@DaddyFiles) January 22, 2015
Tsarnaev, you say? The admitted Boston Marathon bomber returns 793,000 hits on Google News, and pales in comparison to the traffic Hernandez has received.
So rest easy, Pats fans, as it would take far more than a few errant text messages for Tom Brady and company to pull down the sort of attention needed to top this motley crew.
