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Monday, August 29, 2016

AP's Kathleen Carroll Still Doesn't Get it

In a revealing interview with CNN's Brian Stelter on Inside Sources, she says that:

1. Yes, the twitter headline about the AP's big expose on the Clinton Foundation was 'sloppy'

2. But, no, she has no plans to take it down.

My guess is: she worries that would erode the AP's papal infallibility. Her logic would do an old Jesuit proud.

She seems to think that having a slopping Twitter headline is not important enough to worry about. In this she willfully misunderstands the point. In this day of social media, what you put in the Twitter headline can be more important than what's in the body of the story as more people by far will read the headline than read the entire article.

"The AP's top editor, Kathleen Carroll, says the newswire's much-scrutinized Clinton Foundation investigation was "rock solid," but the inaccurate promotional tweet about it was "sloppy."

"We're a lot better at breaking stories and covering news and gathering video and taking photographs than we are on tweets," she told me on this morning's show. However, Carroll stood by the AP's decision not to delete the tweet. "Maybe, going forward, we need to work more on our precision on the tweets." Alex Koppelman has a full summary of the interview here... And you can watch it here...

-- Another recent tweet from the AP, saying "Dwyane Wade and Donald Trump speak out on Twitter in wake of the NBA star's cousin's fatal shooting," was "clumsy," Carroll acknowledged. She said execs will be talking with the social media team about the recent misfires...

-- Worth reading: A rebuttal by ThinkProgress EIC Judd Legum: "It is likely that far more people would read a 'sloppy' 140-character tweet than a lengthy story about Clinton’s schedule. Dismissing the tweet as a side issue fails to recognize the importance of social media in the AP’s own reporting and distribution strategies..."

-- An emailer adds: the AP is "fighting against Clinton and State stonewalling them, both on the records and the questions they’d want to ask. IMHO they at least deserve credit for that despite the screw ups..."

http://us11.campaign-archive2.com/?u=47c9040f6ff957a59bd88396e&id=9ad722d48a
The idea that this tweet was legitimate because Clinton and the State Department weren't talking to them hardly dignifies a response it is so odd.

Some are determined to to push this 'It's just a tweet' illusion.
All of a sudden tweets must precisely tell full complete story ... too bad that rule didn't apply for HRC media in primaries.

https://twitter.com/davidBlandry/status/770034013742460928

Jay Rosen knocks that down:

"Incorrect. Tweets don't have to tell the full story. They can't. Point is they should not tell a misleading story."

https://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu/status/770035569648889856

Is this really so hard to grasp? It's just like a traditional headline in a newspaper on an online article. Even if the article is accurate that still doesn't justify a false or misleading headline.



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