Or is the right word “tweeting”? In any case, here’s their Twitter feed. Yesterday came this ditty:
Hot after laying off 300 teacher DISD is … hosting a job fair looking for 200 teachers. http://tinyurl.com/9hdo9w Stay classy, DISD.
The URL points to the news story about the district’s job fair. In the story, the district’s spokesman, Jon Dahlander, explains what on the surface sounds like a situation that calls for a snarky comment like “Stay classy, DISD.” And, fine, maybe even after you’ve heard the explanation, you might still reach for your snark gun. But is this what the Dallas Morning News should be doing? The Twitter feed isn’t from an editorial columnist; it presumably speaks with the voice and authority of the entire paper.
We’re all trying to figure out how to use this zany internet. I’d argue the DMN isn’t doing itself any favors with this experiment.
20 comments
Lighten up, Francis…
The Twitter demographic and the editorial page reader are not looking for the same content.
I’d say that the average issue of Quick had as much snarkiness as this remark on an average day.
Or are you just a bit steamed that the tweets are stepping on your turf? Perhaps the DMN doesn’t realize you have cornered the snark market.
The DMN should imitate bloggers who tweet their latest news headlines — it makes a great headline “crawl,”and it’s genuine news that people will read.
There is no reason for a newspaper to behave like a snarky blogger.
Here’s a tweet from a half-hour ago: “Neiman Marcus learned the hard way that people don’t want to buy endzones, lifesize Lego figures… cutting 400. http://tinyurl.com/8nw7dl” You can have personality without the snark. While the DMN may be a shell of its former self, it still has some standards it needs to uphold. Even if it is a message for the Twitterverse.
I applaud them for reaching out into a new demographic. They have over 1,300 ‘followers’ which isn’t bad for a new twit. ter. er.
Just to clarify, it’s great to Tweet. But just like some commenters expect D to adhere to certain standards on its blog, the DMN needs to adhere to certain standards on its tweets.
So Sean, you’re saying D has higher standards on it’s blog than the DMN does on its tweets?
Try searching “Stay Classy” on the search bar on the Frontburner page and you’ll see six examples of “stay classy” as the last line of a post here.
There’s a line between news and promotion. The tweets exist purely to get those 1300 tweet followers to go read the story…snarky headlines for serious stories.
Sorry if that offends you. I like it.
While this specific instance may toe the gray line of “editorializing,” I agree with R that twitter (and social networking in general) necessitates a different style of content. While I can’t speak for all of my peers in the under-25 demo, I can say that simply re-posting headlines is not going to work on social networks. I get that on my Google reader.
Despite it’s claim as the “official” twitter feed, it also identifies Travis Hudson as the source, somewhat deferring the institutional tone. Hudson’s “snark” (although I’m not sure that’s exactly what it is) gives the DMN a much-needed sense of personality, accessibility, and an odd-sort of endearing vulnerability that separates the twitter feed from just the headlines in my Google reader. Whether it’s the right way or not, Travis and the DMN are actually building a brand with a younger demo.
KERA uses its Twitter feed (twitter.com/keratx) to send out headlines each time a new news story, arts feature or blog post is posted. That seems to keep the proper tone and organizational standard while still getting their content out in a timely fashion. They’ve got nearly 300 followers after just a few months, so it seems to be working.
Having almost 2,800 followers on Twitter, with TDMN being one of them, I, too, was curious and caught off guard by yesterday’s remark. (Not to mention some days I still wish I was the communications director at DISD. JK, I don’t.)
But then, blogging is a different creature, particularly for news organizations. I think we’ve long departed from the days of when reporters simply reported without the addition of editorial comments. Those days simply are over, as most news editors seldom see a blog post before it goes live. The same goes for Micro-blogging on Twitter.
Now whether adding a comment like “stay classy,” is indeed classy or not, it’s done what it likely was intended to do. We’ve all read that story now, and 24 hours later, we’re hear still reading it and still talking about it. And, in my mind, that in one more way validates the power of Twitter and other micro-blogging sites. (I’m @daddyclaxton on Twitter if you’d care to join me.) Stay classy!
@R I don’t think D has higher standards. But I can’t tell you the number of times that someone comes on here and asks about “editorial integrity” and “media bias.” It gets thrown around when it’s convenient, it seems.
I spent 20 years in print before pulling the ripcord five months ago. Before that, I was trying to drag my department online. And yeah, we ran right up to the line and I had to be pulled back a few times. It just struck me as odd and maybe I do need to lighten up.
Well, at least DISD is doing some hiring after all the firing. Contrasted to, say, the DMN.
R: thanks for the Stripes reference. Made me giggle.
Phew! I was worried that the word, “snark” would disappear in 2009!
/snark
It makes me cringe when men “giggle.” But I still like you, Eric.
Maybe you girls should chuckle.
Thanks for the feedback. The thoughts, questions and concerns expressed in this thread are all part of our ongoing discussion here about how to best serve the different audiences on the different platforms we are experimenting with. We’re not going to get it right every time, either. FYI, we deliberately set up the dallas_news Twitter feed to have a sense of personality, fronted by Travis. We also have a straight, breaking news feed at dallasnews_top, which doesn’t have the snark.
Anthony Moor
Deputy Managing Editor/Interactive
Hi Anthony–and Travis,
Great to hear that the DMN is using Twitter to alert readers to stories. In this case, the initial headline that accompanied the story was wrong. That apparently caused the tweet to be wrong.
There was not a job fair yesterday held by Dallas ISD. There was an information session for individuals who are interested in learning about how to become a teacher through the alternative certification process. There will be two more in February.
Our goal is to identify up to 200 potential teachers in the areas of math, science and bilingual education. They would not begin until the next school year in August. There is turnover among teachers at the end of every school year, particularly in a school district this size.
The headline and–correspondingly–the tweet–both implied (”Hot after laying off…”) that the district was holding a job fair to hire 200 teachers right now. Wrong.
If you’re going to tweet, great. By all means, however, tweet accurately.
Old media rules of accuracy should still apply.
Jon Dahlander
Dallas ISD
re: “FYI, we deliberately set up the dallas_news Twitter feed to have a sense of personality, fronted by Travis.”
There’s a choice of two feeds? Headlines and news on one and “a sense of personality” on the other? And they point to the same place?
What if the sense of personality came from the DMN’s reporting and writing, instead of Travis the Twitter Rewrite Guy?
ph
I decided that my resolution for this year is to give up on feeds and Twitters and Tumblrs and everything else that is supposed to help me both simplify and keep informed. It makes my brain melt trying to keep up with all the beeps and bloops and blops and alerts and updates.
/Old Man Shaking His Cane at the Neighborhood Kids
I don’t understand why tim is once again questioning what other pubs are doing instead of getting the bugs out of his own.
Phil… dallas_news does not tweet the same stories as dallasnews_top. The former highlights stories of interest to our Twitter audience that may not be breaking news. The latter is just a breaking news feed.
Jon… the editor on the story changed the headline to reflect that it wasn’t a job fair but an information session. Regarding the tweet, we agree accuracy is paramount.