Tag Archives: social media

Briefly

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Yesterday in a small community outside my hometown of Laurel, Mississippi, something horrible happened. A man held his daughter, her husband, his ex-wife, and two children hostage. The children were let go, the man killed his daughter, wounded the two other adults and a law enforcement officer. There was a standoff lasting about 18 hours that eventually led to the gunman killing himself. In addition to local and neighboring law enforcement, the Mississippi Highway Patrol was called in. It was a terrible thing for the community to hear about on a Sunday night.

Oh, hang on.

The community probably didn’t hear about it Sunday night because the Laurel/Hattiesburg NBC affiliate did a pre-recorded late newscast. Because of the Olympics. And the local newspaper website is snuggled safely behind a paywall. What that newspaper, The Chronicle, did was post updates throughout the night and into this morning on its Facebook page. I agree with my friend Desmond who said their use of social media was about the best of any news outlet anywhere. They nailed it. The coverage was timely and completely professional. They did not editorialize or sensationalize. WDAM, the local television station, said they were short staffed and didn’t use Facebook for actual news. On its Facebook feed this morning, WDAM posted the following:

Remember: Facebook is not our website. This is just where we share stuff and talk to our audience. Our website is www.wdam.com and its children – our mobile apps, and our mobile site. We don’t post all of our coverage here, and we don’t necessarily post news here as it happens.

Right. Because what a waste of time and energy THAT would be.

Could it really be there are still traditional media outlets out there that don’t understand if it didn’t happen on social media, it didn’t happen? Appears so. What The Chronicle appears to understand is that social media gets the story out there now. The internet gets the story out there now.  And that allows the print edition to do what we’re always complaining news doesn’t do anymore: Analyze, educate, and supply context. Obviously not everyone uses Facebook and Twitter. I get that. There are thousands of people in Jones County without internet access. That’s why WDAM’s fail in reporting (or not reporting) the story last night is so mind boggling to me. Then going on the defensive this morning was just weird. We were understaffed, you guys! Olympics! USA! No one reads this feed for real news!

Traditional media, social media is not making you irrelevant. You are making you irrelevant. Stop making it about competing. Stop worrying about whether or not people use their real names to comment on your website. Who the hell cares? It’s supposed to be about the story. Newspapers and broadcast news outlets can’t compete with social media. So why worry about it? There’s an opportunity to use social media to your advantage. You can be the guy who first broke the story on social media then used your paper or television studio to tell the whole story, or you can be the guy who’s hoping enough coverage of ribbon cutting ceremonies and lost pet announcements will keep you in the black. That’s doing versus hoping. No one ever won a Pulitzer or increased ad sales by hoping.

What I Have Learned From The Internet

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  1. Everything is always as it is. There are no exceptions to any rules.
  2. Nothing is as it is. There are only exceptions to rules.
  3. You’ve never had [insert illness here] as badly as I have.
  4. You think that [insert food item here] is good? That’s shit!
  5. The only REAL [insert food item here] comes from [obscure, tiny restaurant/market which only holds three people and is only open when Mercury is in retrograde].
  6. All my symptoms add up to an illness that will kill me dead in three hours.
  7. My argument is not sound because I forgot to take into account this very tiny probability of something happening like, oh, monkeys flying out of my butt.
  8. My argument is not sound because I cursed.
  9. My taste in music is lacking because I am not familiar with this band which was formed in South Dakota in 1993 and only played one show in front of 16 people.
  10. [Insert band here] is like Radiohead when no one listened to Radiohead except you.
  11. Using the terms “a lot of people”, “most people”, or “no one” means I have a sound argument.
  12. Ad hominem attacks are acceptable when everyone knows the attacked is an asshat.
  13. Duh.
  14. There must be one negative GET OFF MY LAWN! for every five bunny and kitten comments.
  15. You are not as cool as I am because I have been using [insert brand/platform/app/software/hardware/obscure eco-conscious feminine hygiene brand here] since it was in private beta.
  16. You are not as cool as I am because I have not been using [insert brand/platform/app/software/hardware/obscure eco-conscious feminine hygiene brand here] since it was in private beta because I don’t care about those things.
  17. I didn’t really read your piece so I will now make an argument against what you wrote that actually affirms the very thing you wrote.
  18. I could not care less about the NBA.
  19. A person who spends five hours in front of the television is a bum, but one who spends five hours at a computer watching the same, exact thing is tech-savvy.
  20. Poking fun at [insert politician/social movement/political view] means I am against it as one should never poke fun at a [insert politician/social movement/political view] one believes in.
  21. You know who’d have done this list better? Hitler.