If this didn’t betray a deep and disturbing level of homophobia and a major invasion of privacy, it would be funny.
Courtesy of the Sunday Pepper – a Ugandan newspaper.
I’m a relative newcomer to the Twitstream. Usually a rapid adopter of new technologies, I’m not sure why it took me so long to get my head around the value of Tweets. I half-heartedly opened an account a few months back, but it has only been in the last week or two that I’ve become a more committed Tweeter.
Now that I’m part of the TsuTweetie (my word – feel free to spread it) I’m intrigued at how rapidly it has gained momentum, in much the same way Google and Facebook did in their early years. Determined not to miss the boat, the purveyors of Old Media are rushing to embrace it. Sky has a fully fledged “Twitter Correspondent” in the form of Ruth Barnett (bizarrely pictured here in front of, um, YouTube. Hey Social Media all looks the same, doesn’t it?)
Possibly the most famous newspaper headline blunder was made by the Chicago Tribune of 3 November 3 1948, which bannered “Dewey Defeats Truman”.
When the decision to print the paper was made, returns from the US election were coming in very slowly and time was running out before the deadline for the edition. The Tribune staff, based on the early returns, decided Dewey would be the next President. After the newspaper was delivered to the street, more returns came in and showed that Truman would be the ultimate winner and be re-elected as President. The already delivered “error” newspapers were gathered for return by staff members sent out to pick them up from newsstands and homes in the Chicago area. Not all were collected, however, and the photo of the victorious President Truman holding the paper aloft has become iconic.
While clearly no-where near as disastrous as that, I was amused this morning to find that the Weekender newspaper dated 25 April 2009 has made a similar mistake by “calling” the results of the Western Cape poll prematurely.
“DA resports to coalition for control of the Cape” says the headline, and the story goes on to say:
“Intense negotiations between political parties in the Western Cape are on the cards as they try to forge coalitions of sufficient strength to take control of the province. The horse-trading will be necessary because of the Democratic Alliance’s failure to win an outright majority in the province…”
Hmmm. Ooops. With 51.33% of the vote in her handbag, Ms Zille is now to be Premier of the Western Cape, regardless of what coalition she manages to forge. Of course she may still decide to enter into an alliance with other parties, but the point is she doesn’t have to. She has won.
I’m surprised the Weekender got it so wrong. As a Cape Town resident I have been watching the results closely for the past 36 hours. And for most of them the party hasn’t dipped below 50% at all and, when it did, it was only for a short while. If they wanted to err on the side of caution they should have printed the opposite story “Majority seems likely for the DA” would have been a more accurate, safer and, as it turned out, correct headline.
Just shows the perils of Old Media who should, in an age where there is instant news all around us, capitalise on their one biggest strength – offer great insight and detailed analysis. In a rolling news environment when a story is still live when you go to print, don’t take any chances because it gives new media pundits the chance to ridicule you and tweak your nose. Tweak tweak.
So it is the evening after election day. Like millions of others, I am curious about the results – having queued at Home Affairs for three hours to get a temporary ID, then another two hours at the polling station to actually make my mark, I feel sort of part and parcel of the process. And I’m curious to know how it all turned out.
Today I’ve been working with the TV on, occasionally popping through to the lounge to see how things are progressing. While at my PC I’ve been checking a couple of websites regularly and in my car a couple of times I’ve listened to some radio news broadcasts.
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