As you may have heard, there was a horrific accident on I-4 between Tampa and Orlando today.
If you haven’t heard, then you probably don’t follow Twitter in the Orlando area, because the Orlando Sentinel went into full-on Twitter spam mode today with updates.
Gee, Twitter spam?! That’s awfully harsh criticism, isn’t it?
Well, you be the judge.
So far, the Orlando Sentinel has sent 22 tweets today to more than 300 twitter followers. That’s in contrast to 16 tweets in the entire month of December.
The deluge was… a little much. (OK, way the F too much would be more accurate.)
Worse than the spam, however, was the open celebration that took place on Twitter among the Orlando Sentinel staff.
Tweets between the staff:
couch: HOLY CRAP! INTERACTIVE FLASH TIMELINE @TORYHARGRO AND I JUST DID GOT 496 HITS IN 10 MINUTES.
couch: 20 minutes after launch: 2,377 cumulative hits.
bburto: @couch and @toryhargro are kickin ass on the interactive graphics with the 70-car pileup. M.E. rewards them with Magic tix. Shweet!
Ah, yes… the dirty underbelly of “journalism”.
Don Henley – Dirty Laundry
Kick em when they’re up,
Kick em when they’re down.
Kick em when they’re up,
Kick em all around.We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who
Comes on at five.
She can tell you bout the plane crash with a gleam
In her eye.
Its interesting when people die-
Give us dirty laundry.
“Journalism” may be moving online, but some things never change at the Orlando Sentinel… if it bleeds, it leads.
You know how I feel about the “news” here in the area. The TV stations are crap, and the newspapers aren’t any better. Now that I’ve found a decent grocery store, my only complaint about Florida is the consistently bad news coverage.
Nine more tweets so far this morning. I have unsubscribed and I’m a news junkie! At least CNN has it right — on Twitter they give you the urgent, not the “hey, another update”.
Everyone knows your website – if they want to check in periodically, they will.
For news orgs, Twitter should be an urgent call – not 23x a day (as it turned into yesterday).
it’s not spam… it’s twitter! 😉