Comments on: Express confuses followers and following. Ha ha ha!

By: Tale of two tw*ts at the Daily Express « media #fail blog

Tale of two tw*ts at the Daily Express « media #fail blog — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:04:56 +0000

[...] the Express claimed it had ‘no’ followers, it seems it has well over 500. Were they confused between ‘followers’ and ‘following’ as Malcolm Coles asks? The second claim was that a Radio 5 Twitter feed run by Vic Derbyshire has just two followers. [...]

By: 140Char » Express newspaper in Twitter embarrassment

140Char » Express newspaper in Twitter embarrassment — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:32:04 +0000

[...] In summary, the Express published a story (since removed from their site), which claimed the BBC was publishing Twitter accounts with 0 or 2 followers. Malcolm Coles was quick point out that the two Express writers had managed to use the figures for the number accounts were Following instead of being Followed by. [...]

By: Chie Elliott

Chie Elliott — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:52:42 +0000

In this day and age there are journalists who still don't know what the difference is between following and follower?! And it's "citizen journalists" who end up getting called amateurs... Go figure.

By: Twitter is here to stay « Rosie Niven

Twitter is here to stay « Rosie Niven — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:15:45 +0000

[...] who were making claims about the lack of interest in BBC presenters’ Twitter feeds had confused followers and following. And after highlighting this example of sloppy journalism, he added for good measure that there [...]

By: Malcolm Coles

Malcolm Coles — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:21:52 +0000

"Do journalists not do research anymore?"
The key here is "journalists": they actually had TWO journalists bylined on this story. You'd think one would be awake enough to realise they were talking rubbish ...

By: Calli

Calli — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:20:14 +0000

Do journalists not do research anymore?

Is there no one checking facts?

As Toni says it is embarrassing but also reinforces the argument that you need to find information from creditable sources.

By: Karyn Fleeting

Karyn Fleeting — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:19:16 +0000

OUCH.

By: Malcolm Coles

Malcolm Coles — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:06:13 +0000

Jem: Thanks. I did see that one but wasn't sure of the difference. Thanks for explaining. I plumped for the one above to give them the benefit of the doubt - as it was following 1 person which seemed closest to the 0 they quoted (the official one you mention is following 160). If they did mean the official one, they were even more completely stupid as 160 does not equal zero either.

All in all, who knows what they meant as the whole piece was complete rubbish!

By: Toni Anicic

Toni Anicic — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:04:50 +0000

Super-embarrassing for them. That's what often happens when mainstream journalists write about online stuff.

By: Jem Stone

Jem Stone — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:03:54 +0000

Oops meant to include this...There is a fuller list of Radio 2 related accounts here: http://twitter.com/BBC/radio2 and 5 Live related accounts http://twitter.com/BBC/radio5live