Q and world news
Q claimed to reveal what the media hide. Here, the actors and countries it names are compared with the news volume GDELT devotes to them — a global database of events extracted from the press (181,749,399 events over 1,219 days).
Method
Over-representation = actor's share of Q's mentions ÷ its share of GDELT volume, over the same set of actors. For the dynamics, we use the correlation of weekly changes (differences of log(1+n)), lagged −4 to +4 weeks (positive: news precedes Q), and Granger tests both ways (minimum p-value over 1 and 2 weeks, uncorrected for multiple comparisons).
Whom does Q over-represent compared with the news?
Log scale. 1 = as much room in Q as in the news.
Q's mentions and news volume
Monthly index, 100 = period average, for each series.
| Actor | Drops | GDELT events | Over-representation | ρ (level) | Strongest lag | Granger news → Q | Granger Q → news |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barack Obama | 164 | 426,340 | 2.06 | 0.42 | +0 wk (r = 0.12) | 0.670 | 0.336 |
| Hillary Clinton | 128 | 85,767 | 7.98 | 0.32 | -2 wk (r = 0.15) | 0.548 | 0.162 |
| Democratic Party | 98 | 170,005 | 3.08 | 0.25 | -1 wk (r = 0.12) | 0.695 | 0.066 |
| US Senate | 87 | 924,682 | 0.50 | 0.25 | +0 wk (r = 0.18) | 0.401 | 0.516 |
| White House | 85 | 552,174 | 0.82 | 0.28 | +0 wk (r = 0.21) | 0.368 | 0.336 |
| 52 | 378,370 | 0.73 | 0.27 | +0 wk (r = 0.18) | 0.474 | 0.075 | |
| US Congress | 43 | 1,170,923 | 0.20 | 0.16 | +0 wk (r = 0.15) | 0.456 | 0.205 |
| Joe Biden | 37 | 174,002 | 1.14 | 0.26 | -3 wk (r = 0.21) | 0.865 | 0.051 |
| George Soros | 36 | 12,195 | 15.78 | 0.21 | +0 wk (r = 0.26) | 0.696 | 0.712 |
| House of Representatives | 33 | 87,050 | 2.03 | 0.09 | +0 wk (r = 0.29) | 0.486 | 0.066 |
| European Union | 29 | 344,194 | 0.45 | 0.19 | -4 wk (r = -0.16) | 0.538 | 0.140 |
| Bill Clinton | 21 | 49,189 | 2.28 | 0.15 | -1 wk (r = -0.19) | 0.724 | 0.068 |
| Military intelligence | 15 | 9,347 | 8.58 | 0.08 | +4 wk (r = -0.12) | 0.280 | 0.707 |
| Pentagon / Department of Defense | 14 | 55,712 | 1.34 | -0.04 | +1 wk (r = 0.17) | 0.023 | 0.105 |
| Vladimir Putin | 10 | 114,882 | 0.47 | 0.16 | +4 wk (r = 0.08) | 0.609 | 0.522 |
Countries: Q versus the news
Rank correlation across countries (Q mentions / GDELT events): ρ = 0.61.
| Actor | Drops | GDELT events | Over-representation |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 125 | 58,231,938 | 0.35 |
| Russia | 117 | 3,882,010 | 4.85 |
| China | 81 | 5,292,504 | 2.46 |
| Iran | 64 | 2,495,013 | 4.13 |
| Saudi Arabia | 63 | 1,347,526 | 7.53 |
| North Korea | 60 | 896,436 | 10.78 |
| United Kingdom | 53 | 8,710,404 | 0.98 |
| Ukraine | 21 | 1,033,689 | 3.27 |
| Australia | 20 | 4,148,355 | 0.78 |
| Haiti | 19 | 136,659 | 22.39 |
| Germany | 14 | 1,951,735 | 1.16 |
| Syria | 14 | 1,813,145 | 1.24 |
| France | 9 | 2,295,144 | 0.63 |
| Pakistan | 9 | 2,922,993 | 0.50 |
| Israel | 8 | 3,660,977 | 0.35 |
| Mexico | 7 | 1,303,481 | 0.86 |
| Italy | 6 | 1,281,616 | 0.75 |
| Hong Kong | 6 | 418,666 | 2.31 |
| Canada | 6 | 4,544,220 | 0.21 |
| Iraq | 5 | 1,037,516 | 0.78 |
| Japan | 5 | 1,544,693 | 0.52 |
| New Zealand | 5 | 1,161,455 | 0.69 |
| Armenia | 4 | 405,921 | 1.59 |
| Singapore | 4 | 590,269 | 1.09 |
| Qatar | 3 | 350,633 | 1.38 |
| Yemen | 3 | 429,996 | 1.12 |
| Libya | 3 | 416,950 | 1.16 |
| Cuba | 3 | 317,480 | 1.52 |
| South Korea | 2 | 927,220 | 0.35 |
| Vatican / Holy See | 2 | 50,401 | 6.39 |
| Belgium | 2 | 592,721 | 0.54 |
| Austria | 2 | 304,736 | 1.06 |
| Sudan | 2 | 494,702 | 0.65 |
| Kenya | 2 | 1,014,000 | 0.32 |
| Afghanistan | 2 | 1,303,772 | 0.25 |
| Vietnam | 2 | 861,598 | 0.37 |
| Venezuela | 2 | 527,515 | 0.61 |
| Ecuador | 2 | 105,529 | 3.05 |
| Turkey | 1 | 1,839,509 | 0.09 |
| United Arab Emirates | 1 | 586,697 | 0.27 |