The Fail Cow is Getting Ready to Sing

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The Kansas City Star ran a ridiculous puff piece today about following celebrities on twitter – (hey, it was in the lifestyle section with all the other puff pieces so I have no problem with that.)

What I did take issue with was the fact that the professional journalist writing the story stated erroneously, not once, but twice, that the twitter allowed users 140 words or less to tweet.

Now, I don’t want to come off as one of the social media maniacs, but I did want to leave a thoughtful comment to point out the 140 characters limitation to twitter. After about 20 minutes of unsuccessful login and register routines I gave up. There were no comments posted at the time of this writing and knowing the twitterholics I’m guessing no one could get through to post a comment.

Okay, so now I’m starting to think rant material, but I decide to go network directly with the @KCSTAR on twitter directly. To my dismay, @KCSTAR has only 2 updates, last one coming about 7 months ago. So, I’m guessing nobody’s really home there either.

So, now my irritation has melted into something more like pity. This is my hometown paper, but they are beyond not getting it and I fear the fail cow is getting ready to sing.

I would love to hear from the STAR here and get their take on my view, but I suspect no one from the STAR will read, comment, filter or aggregate this post and that’s sad. I wouldn’t be so hard on them were it not for the countless complaints by mainstream journalists that blogging has somehow tainted real journalism and ruined the world as we know it.

I mean really, who can tell the entire story in 140 words or less?

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Posted by: John Jantsch on Feb 04, 09 | 9:09 am
Category: Social Media | Tags: , Kansas City Star

Comments

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Mario Sanchez Carrion

Classical meatball sundae... Their Twitter profile says that they are "experimenting" with Twitter. Clearly they are not taking social media seriously and it shows in the mistake you point out. Their loss...

Greg Turner

I have the impression that most newspapers, these days, are nothing more than a very thin skeleton staff who outsource all the work to contract writers, etc. whom have no loyalty to the newspaper. Hence the lack of any cohesive response to something that effects them so much as does the phenomena of Social Media.

Eric Goebelbecker

Is it possible that it's just a case of poor editing?

Sure, it feels real really good to declare how superior you are to someone else, especially when it comes to the flavor of the month, but maybe the poor guy was thinking "character" and typed "word."

Joseph T. Dager

People do get what they wish for, don't they?

I am simply amazed on a daily basis what has happened to print media, especially newspapers. Not that the internet and social media is the answer to everything but it has to be recognized and dealt with. And the shame of it, is that the newspapers had the upper hand at the beginning. They must still be experimenting along with so many others.

Nigel

I must be missing something. Twitter DOES limit us to 140 characters or less per tweet. so, wasn't the article correct?

Yemoonyah

Great post, I like the way you set it up. It has a nice flow to it. You know how to build things. Maybe you were a designer or architect in a former lifetime :-)
Anyway, I think these people just don't know any better because no one ever told them. Most of the people around me have never heard about Twitter, Facebook or even blogs. And if they have they don't get it. I guess it will take a while but eventually they will all have to come around.

KJ Rodgers

140 words is huge for a micro-blog like Twitter. I think it would be hard for many celebs to creatively find 140 words to randomly input through their short days.

John Jantsch

@Eric - maybe you only read 1/3 of this post or I did a lousy job of making my point - this was not about the mistake and feeling smug - I make mistakes daily and am thankful when someone takes the time to point it out (although this was not a typo this was an incorrect fact made twice that was fundamental to the story.)

The only reason I wrote the post was to point out how strikes one, two, and three were symptoms of the much larger problem that exists in this long-time media outlet - and that makes me sad.

John Jantsch

@Nigel - the story said 140 words not characters, but again, that was not the point of this post - read the entire post people

John Jantsch

@Greg - yes I think that's right, but man is that the point of this stuff - most of the new media publications out there are less than skeleton staffs and they are eating their lunch and sucking up all the ad dollars by understanding the power of social media - the big outlets could have remade themselves five years ago and owned that space, but it's probably too late now.

Nigel

@john - I'm not a dyslexic reader, but I play one on TV. Actually I did read the entire post. AND I went to the KC newspaper that you linked to and read the whole article there, too. I just had a brain freeze for a minute and didn't notice words vs. characters.

BTW, I agree with all of your other points in the post. Luckily, I have several news organizations in Austin, TX that do get it. @kvue, @KXAN_News, @statesman to name a few.

Also, I thought the original article was a pretty good article overall. And the author IS actually fairly active on Twitter according to him. So I think he, as an individual journalist, gets it. But your larger point about his employer, and the medium in general, being slow to move into meaningful social media is still a valid point.

Eric Goebelbecker

No, I read the whole post. What you described as a "ridiculous puff piece" with what may or may not be a typo -> broken comments systems on website -> dormant twitter account -> this newspaper is doomed.

(No mention of whether or not Star has e-mail accounts or a comments form.)

Newspapers all over the country are hurting and you are wondering there's no one on twitter waiting for you to complain fact checking in a "ridiculous puff piece."

Maybe my skepticism about twitter is showing through (it stills looks like RSS for the attention span deprived to me) but I'd wager that if the Star is doomed, it was doomed long ago and missing the boat on twitter is not the straw that broke the camel's back.

P.S. I don't work for a newspaper. :-)

John Jantsch

@Eric I understand your skepticism of twitter and it's healthy - as with any of these tools it's all about objectives and results - for some they are right for other they are not - but again, it's symptomatic - they were doomed six years ago when they didn't embrace blogging - it's not the individual journalist's fault that her paper is hanging on for dear life, I'm just sad because it didn't have to be that way.

Chris Ford

Maybe you should run a competition for the best 140 word story. Short concise pieces are quite important for successful business development.

Chris Wilson

A couple of weeks ago I had a bad experience with a TV reporter who had seen an article in our local gazette about my involvement with social media and business. She basically twisted what began as a story in the gazette of how social media is breaking down barriers that used to exist in collaboration and forming and maintaining relationships over long distances into a scare tactic story of the dangers of social media addiction.

What killed me about the whole thing is that the reporter didn't seem aware at all of how social media works. That should have been my first clue.

I really don't know what her long term agenda was with the story. (Maybe she just needed to get a story out.) But I just can't understand how you could be a journalist and ignore what is happening in social media.

web content

It's kinda sad that print media has fallen so far behind the competition just by stubbornly refusing to keep up with the new developments of the times.

Ryan Martin

I think that this just shows why newspapers are becoming extinct. Especially the ones that are falling behind times. This is a case of a writer in over their head and a lack of accountability on the editors end.

I will say that the Seattle Times is actually pretty active on Twitter, so not all of the newspapers are oblivious.

Click and Inc

true that newspapers are going down hill and it's quite sad actually. Good post though. Makes me realize how popular Twitter really is.

dixie vogel

The word vs. character would have been a mistake by the orignial author, missed by the copy editor. Looks like it has sense been corrected in the online version of the article.

In all fairness, the Star has had repeated rounds of layoffs, so the people there are doing a lot more work with less time to do it. This is what people in print media are dealing with in a widespread way, and not specific to the Star. (Have a friend who works at the Star and another in other print media.)

From my understanding and from working with the Star on a project some time back, they acknowledge the importance of online stuff in a general way, but are old-school in terms of multiple layers of committee-based management who don't seem to get the picture. I wasn't particularly impressed with the "online initiatives" that came from this mix. But nothing happens without management approval and worries over being sued. The freewheeling world of Twitter would probably be terrifying to some of the decision-makers.

So I'd be inclined to shift the responsibilty for missing the social media/online boat upstairs, myself.

John Jantsch

@dixie et al - this was never an attempt to pick on the author of this story - perhaps it came off that way, but it was always my intention to highlight what slow movement at the top has done to this paper and in some way the entire industry.

J. Michael Warner

I think and comments highlight that newspapers as we have known them will soon go the way of dinosaurs.

SEO Software

Lots of sensitivity -- apparently you hit a nerve John! I think this is another good example of how many old media outlets have failed to catch the next wave. Even "newer" media outlets like AOL caught the wave late and are struggling big time. Not trying to knock anyone here, just observing that it requires skill and courage to recognize new trends and find effective ways to adapt.

Atniz

Twitter is increasing used to gain more traffic. So, getting an attractive title with shortened url in 140 words is sufficient to do this work.

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