Q4 2022

Crisis analysis

Our summary report of the biggest crises of 2022 looks at the media coverage of and public interest in various different types of crises, ranging from swiftly-resolved issues to the complete implosions of entire companies and even industries.

Download our full report below to get access to all of the insights.

Elon Musk & Twitter

Elon Musk was already often the main character on Twitter, but that became evermore obvious when his purchase of the platform became official in late October.

There had already been considerable media interest leading up to it as speculation abounded about what would happen, but public interest really picked up as Musk’s reign of chaos began. 

The top articles have tended to come from conservative publications, celebrating previously banned users returning to the platform and the firing of executives. 

Other top stories have included the amount of employees fired, and criticism of Musk’s own use of Twitter since the takeover.

Public and media interest in Elon Musk & Twitter

Public interest

Media interest

Spotlight:
Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster found itself in the spotlight twice in the second half of 2022, thanks to the chaos surrounding ticket sales for two of the biggest artists in the world — Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift.

The Springsteen incident happened first, as fans found themselves unable to afford tickets to The Boss’ world tour when they went on sale at the end of July. This was due to the dynamic pricing introduced by Ticketmaster that bases pricing on the demand for the tickets, and as one of the biggest names in the world, demand was obviously high. There were reports of tickets selling for as much as $4,500 for the stadium tour. 

Public interest was slow to pick up, despite early media interest, but it took a few days for the groundswell of attention to occur, with the peak in public interest coming on day 7 of the incident. 

This was not true for the Taylor Swift iteration of the crisis, which almost had a pre-crisis of sorts as fans struggled to get tickets in a pre-sale. This was then made worse by the company canceling the general sale because all of the tickets had been sold during the pre-sale, leading to the peak in public and media interest on day four of the saga.

The Swift situation was markedly more covered than the Springsteen one, with more than 20x the number of articles written. The Springsteen one resonated strongly with the public though, as it had a third of the level of engagement that Swift’s did, despite far less coverage.

We dive deeper into the top articles in the report itself.

Public and media interest in Ticketmaster

Public interest

Media interest

Spotlight: FTX

The fall of crypto darling FTX has been one of the longest-running financial sagas of the last quarter.

Over the course of the last month or so, there have been more than 80k articles written about FTX’s demise, and the effect that it has had on the crypto industry at large. This is one very obvious example of the financial effects that reporting can have if it exposes a company’s lack of foundations to a significant enough degree. 

Some of the top articles pushed conspiracies about FTX’s links to the Democratic Party and Ukraine’s war effort against Russia, but the majority were about the company’s failure and potential fraud.

Public and media interest in FTX collapse

Public interest

Media interest

Product recalls: Rivian

Rivian found itself in the midst of one of the largest recalls we’ve seen in 2022 in terms of the number of items recalled.

In early October, the electric vehicle start-up announced a recall of nearly every vehicle it had delivered to customers this year. The media was quick to report on the issue, with nearly 250 articles published in the first two days of the announcement. 

Public interest did not peak until Oct 10th when The Daily Wire wrote about it, and this fits the pattern with conservative media’s skepticism of electric cars getting high engagement. While this particular article received over 45k engagements, the Rivian recall didn’t see as much engagement overall as some other product recalls this year. 

Media and public interest in product recalls

Public interest

Media interest

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Discover more insights in the full report

Dive deeper into the data in our full report PDF