[LINK] More KevinPM - crashed site

[Stilgherrian]

On 16/11/2008, at 11:13 AM, Jan Whitaker wrote:
> From your story, Stil, it seems there was a crash but for different
> reasons already known to Twitter. So the issue is the journo in the
> Age got the technical aspect wrong, right?

The journalists simply quoted what Rudd's spokesperson said and took  
it at face value.

In the 21st Century, journalism is no longer about finding the facts  
but just quoting people -- because there isn't time to fact-check.

I suspect that spokesperson was merely passing on what she'd been  
told, and used the word "crash" to describe any computer problem. The  
chain of communication could well have been that the actual Twitterer  
knew about "following too many people too fast" and that was Chinese- 
whispered into "we were too popular".

[shrugs]

With neither politicians' staffers nor mainstream journalists included  
to admit fallability, we'll never know.

Stil



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