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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Media Local Media Fail

Posted by Goldy on Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 10:46 AM

The Seattle Times reprints yesterday's New York Times story about the Seattle Police Department's new Twitter feeds. In the future, maybe we're all just better off getting our local news straight from Twitter?

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To be fair, they really, really need to start saving every penny.

Posted by Pope Peabrain on October 2, 2012 at 10:54 AM

At least the republish adds one public service: The New York Times' original version did NOT allow comments, while the Seattle Times' version does. I was thinking of adding one putting the fab new SPD service in context (while the NYT writes as if there is now no other partner needed in the relationship between police and community, we would note, as a neighborhood-news publication, that if you want to find out more than "it was a theft report," you STILL need a news organization to dive into it - unless you don't mind waiting a week to read the redacted report, if it even shows up online).

Posted by TR @ WSB on October 2, 2012 at 10:57 AM

If the SPD really wants to get out news quickly to people they should set up a system where you sign up with a phone number for specific neighborhood-based alerts, for text messages.

Want to know what's happening in Laurelhurst, Crown Hill, North Beacon Hill, Fauntleroy? Add your mobile number to the system and they can text you 5, 10, 20 times a day with breaking police info.

Posted by Joe Szilagyi

on October 2, 2012 at 11:05 AM

@3 I can set up the Twitter app on my phone to send me notifications for Tweets from specific accounts. That would work the same without having to pay for text messages.

Posted by Goldy on October 2, 2012 at 11:10 AM

I pretty much stopped watching television news once they started just reading people's tweets instead of creating any kind of decent or informative content.

Posted by Theodore Gorath on October 2, 2012 at 11:15 AM

@4 that's great, and I know how to do all that too, but not everyone is

A) tech savvy.
B) has a smart phone or wants one.

I know plenty of people who don't care for/can afford an android or iphone and are content with their flip phones that can receive any text and send basic ones.

Posted by Joe Szilagyi

on October 2, 2012 at 11:27 AM