Ah, yet another example of old media totally failing to grasp new media, and making a mountain out of a non-existent molehill. The Daily Mail is running a story about how Demi Moore has “snubbed” Sarah Brown (our Prime Minister’s wife) on Twitter by not replying to her.
As it breathlessly reports:
On Tuesday afternoon a series of Tweets popped up on Miss Moore’s page from Mrs Brown’s Twitter account telling the actress to ‘Spread the word (in the U.S.A)!’ that ‘Half The Sky by Nicholas Kristoff & Sheryl WuDunn comes out 2day’.
The response from Miss Moore? Very little, apart from a nonplussed silence. In terms of Twitter etiquette, it’s rather like being ignored at a social function.
Issues with this:
a) It wasn’t a “series” of Tweets. It was one.
b) It wasn’t a message directed at Demi Moore. It was a Retweet, with her name in there purely as a form of attribution for the original tweet.
c) In general, Twitter etiquette doesn’t require a reply or thanks for a retweet, although some people do.
The tweet in question is here, and the Daily Mail doesn’t even do the decent thing of linking to it. Old media just doesn’t grasp how linking and attribution helps everybody in every case.
The story is just terrible trash. I was going to use the word “journalism” or “reporting”, but I’d feel quite dirty placing those words so close to this story. Evidently the Mail wants to make fun of Mrs Brown in the same way it relentlessly attacked Cherie Blair, but Mrs Brown isn’t making herself such a public figure.
She’s actually dedicating herself to good causes, and staying under the radar, whereas Cherie was a big-name human rights lawyer who also courted publicity. This strikes me as a very unfair attack, and even moreso for being inept and incorrect.
