I Speak of Dreams

A Confused Young Reporter Needs to Get Up to Speed on Social Media

(click to embiggen all images)

 Late Friday night (June 17, 2011) a young reporter for the Desert Times tried to make a to-do out of nothing, posting a story entitled Something odd afoot on @CalFireNews Twitter account, which began:

We were surprised to get an odd string of messages from Cal Fire last week — including one about cracking open a beer and another chatting about Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.

Oh dear, the young reporter failed to investigate.  If she had (say by clicking on the link at the  @CalFireNews twitter homepage), illustrated to the left, she would have found that @CalFireNews also has a website, and that website prominently displays the message:

CAL FIRE NEWS IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH CAL FIRE AND CONTAINS UNOFFICIAL FIRE AND DISASTER INFORMATION, NEWS, AND EDITORIAL OPINION
*INFORMATION PROVIDED RAW MAY NOT BE TIMELY OR UPDATED REGULARLY*

 

 

 

The young reporter could have used another tool, http://howlongontwitter.com/, and discovered (as I did, it only took a few seconds) that @CalFireNews has been on twitter since October 24, 2007; that @Cal_Fire and @CalFire_PIO (the official California Department of  Forestry twitter accounts) had been on twitter since February 18, 2009; and neither of the official counts are very active.

But she didn't. Instead she went on to write

@CalFireNews has posted nearly a whopping 50,000 tweets on Twitter so far.

Not so fast, says the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“That twitter acct is not run by us,” @CALFIRE_PIO, a spokesman for the fire department, told us via Twitter.

The Twitter profile offers no hint to @CalFireNews' real identity.

We're still waiting to see if the state will do anything to reclaim the Twitter name to protect its reputation — and the thousands of followers duped into reading its posts.

The only person duped is the naive (and, as least as far as investigative reporting goes, not very adept) young reporter.  She also needs to learn the difference between anonymity and pseudonymity.

Full story:

update: that "whopping" 50,000 tweets works out to about 38 tweets a day.  I know @CalFireNews has exceeded that daily average in an hour when there is important breaking news...like earthquakes or major fires.

Thinking of Buying a New Mac? Essential Apps

Yes I am thinking of purchasing a new computer.  Helpfully, Marc Frauenfelder of BoingBoing has published a three parts of a long series on his essential apps. 

(I took the advice of Leo Laporte, who once said that when he buys a new computer, the applications have to "earn their place" onto the hard drive). On the first day, I installed about 30 applications that I consider essential for the kinds of things I do.

1. Apps One through Five
   
2. Apps Six through Ten
   
3. Apps Eleven through Fifteen

(I actually installed two other applications that I'm not going to bother reviewing: Adobe Creative Suite 5, and FileMaker Pro 8. I feel everyone knows enough about these programs that I don't need to describe them.)

Next week:

I'll describe the other 15 applications.

 

WT??? Every Time I Hit Return, Ask.com Intrudes

I'm using Firefox

I probably need to restart the computer -- something noxious is afoot.  I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.3.

Everytime my right pinky hits [return], I'm taken to  http://www.ask.com/?o=1292

Hey Ask.com?  It may not be your fault, but it makes me hate you.