Wow.

Dude, you’re the TECH reporter for the National freekin’ Post. Social media + inappropriate comments = disaster and RTs forever.

Based on the number or RTs within the first few minutes, this little dust-up will find it’s way into many a media relations training manual.

That aside…I know my days as a major media outlet’s reporter would have been numbered after a public display like this. I wonder if the National Post has good media relations peeps?

WOW!
@davefleet tweeted last week “always be careful what you write down” (paraphrased). i wonder if this is what he was talking about.

maybe they should change the “globe and mail test” to “national post test”

good for you April, if there is one, you certainly came out the “winner”

Good for you April! You held it together and I admire your calm through it all. I’m a tech PR person who’s had my fair share of editors and journalists having a “bad day” on both sides of the border. This is unacceptable! David represents his employer in this situation and I’m sure his bosses are not appreciative of this. NO REPORTER should speak to ANYONE like this – I don’t care if there are massive media layoffs!!! There is NO excuse for his behaviour!

Is this what we have come to, now? This has the appeal of watching two sparrows fighting…too silly to contemplate in a serious manner.

I don’t know the whole story and all, but if you had agreed to provide information to a reporter for a story and could not deliver on time, you basically just let him down. I would be upset too. And why post a twitter update about it? That’s just calling him our for a fight.

April’s tweets may have been more measured than David’s but if she truly wanted to be professional she shouldn’t have engaged him at all. Not that it’s her fault, but I think this looks bad for both of them. He clearly has anger issues, but she clearly didn’t have the maturity to not take the bait. JMHO.

Wow, he totally went Christian Bale on her for no apparent reason. I think some anger management classes are in order. Way to keep your cool April and not respond in like fashion.

April – kudos to you, you handled it very well, it says a lot about your character.

i had this write up sent to me just now and i love it. great catch. this thing is becoming common on twitter and i’ve started featuring it if anyone’s interested. friday fights! – http://www.d-blogged.com/search/label/friday%20fights

Completely unprofessional (and childish) behavior on the part of Mr. George-Cosh. I read Ms. Dunford’s original Tweet to be towards newspapers/traditional media in general, certainly not an attack on “sirdavid”.

The class she displays here in the comments only serves to confirm that.

Deleting your Twitter rant/personal attack isn’t an apology, and an apology is what is owed.

The internet never forgets….

Just to be totally clear here, I did not initiate contact with David in a marketing/PR capacity. He left me a message saying he wanted my input on a story he was writing. I’m pretty busy at the moment and couldn’t drop everything to call him back, so returned his call the next day.
April

It is a real shame that reporter chose to act that way. Not only does it make him look like an ass, it makes all reporters look bad. April, I applaud you on your professionalism.

I agree that this David guy was rude and lost his temper – but April was also in the wrong. Not just because she engaged him but because she was wrong in the first place to a) not return his call in a timely fashion and b) post a snarky tweet about it, even if she didn’t identify him.

April said in the comments above: “Just to be totally clear here, I did not initiate contact with David in a marketing/PR capacity. He left me a message saying he wanted my input on a story he was writing. I’m pretty busy at the moment and couldn’t drop everything to call him back, so returned his call the next day.”

Her initial tweet puts it even more baldly: ‘Reporter to me “When the media calls you, you jump, OK!?” Why, when you called me and I’m not selling? Newspapers will get what they deserve’

I can see why it got him so riled up. It sounds indicative of her attitude, which seems to be that the contact with the journalist is ONLY important if SHE is the one selling something. That sums up everything that is wrong in the marketing/PR world.

As a journalist, the thing that bugs me most about PR people is that so many of them think like this. They want journalists’ time when THEY have a story to push and then they’re not available or slow to respond when the journalist initiates contact and needs something from them.

Good marketing and PR professionals DO drop everything and return calls in a timely fashion, which in media time frames when you’re work on news or to a deadline is measured in minutes and hours not days and weeks. I’ve worked with many good marketing and PR professionals who do exactly that.

I’ve also worked with many marketing and PR professionals who are like April. Guess what? If you’re not around to take my calls and respond in a timely fashion, then I won’t be around to listen when you decide you want to make a sales pitch. The only way you’re going to build a relationship with the media is if you give as well as take – and by give, I mean listening to and responding to what we consider important or happen to be working on right now.

And if it happens to be that we’re working on a negative story about your company, it only makes it even more important to respond – a statement from the company putting your side of the story looks an awful lot better for you than ‘the company was unavailable for comment’.

Also you didn’t give us the full tweet history. I just went and looked up @AprilDunford and found these tweets, posted before he started responding on Twitter.

# THEN the same reporter leaves me a message and says “That was very f#@cking unprofessional of you blah, blah” Um, wow. I’m speachless. about 5 hours ago from web

# THEN the reporter (who by the way, I don’t know at all) calls me back and says “What the fuck was up with that Twitter message?!” Like, wow. about 5 hours ago from web

He should have thought twice about engaging with her in a public, written format, but seriously? I can see why he was upset. Firstly, she didn’t return his calls (and I’ve already answered the ‘but I wasn’t selling anything’ question) and secondly, it WAS unprofessional to immediate tweet about his phone conversations and messages, even if she didn’t name him.

I don’t know this guy and I’m not defending his behaviour but you’re all letting April off waaay too lightly. They’re both as bad as each other.

Astonishing! Just heard about this via – you guessed it – an RT on Twitter. Which I’ve also RT’d.

I can see nothing redeemable in the reporter’s appalling behaviour. I suppose the only consolation is that it was remote, ie, text messages via Twitter. Imagine if that had been on the phone or, worse, face to face.

Full credit to you, April, for your handling of a situation that must have been a bit alarming.

wow,
as a tech reporter for a major Canadian newspaper, how could he not realize the damage he just caused to himself! This not only is echoing throughout the tweetsphere, but the blosphere and the general internet. Can you say goodbye reputation?? He will be known as tweetspaz for a long time to come…

There’s two sides to this one I’d say. I give some credence to Caitlin above who points out April may have been more than a little provocative. Having said that, clearly there is no place for abuse. So children, if we’re all finished here, let’s kiss and make up and then you can get back to tweeting about your iphone apps.

David was way out of line in his response, and acted unprofessionally. Everyone above has gone into that.

April was also way out of line and extremely unprofessional. This behavior points to a deeply short-sighted point of view that in the long term is destructive to her reputation and career. Now more than ever, longer-term relationships and reputation are what’s valuable. People are what’s important, much more so than your product of the moment.

“Why… when I’m not selling?” is the most telling line in this mess. That’s something you hear from a crack dealer on a street corner, not from a savvy, experienced and reliable business person.

I hope both of these folks are fresh out of school and will grow from this.

People underestimate the potential audience they have when they post on their blogs or Twitter. You might only have a handful of people paying attention to what you write on any given day, but this is a great lesson in how things can quickly step up to a *much larger* audience. And as Caitlin demonstrated above – then your entire archive of posts could fall under scrutiny.

Dear National Post,

Looking for a new Tech reporter? Look no further…I’m available at twitter.com/trentono .

Looking forward to working with you,
Trent Olson

April – if you were so busy, why did you have time to twitter but not time to call? Sometimes I wonder if people twitter just to get attention.

Hey Caitlin, returning a call the next day is timely and reasonable. You felt the need to post 3 times to carry on about the wrongs April committed. Then you tack in a statement beginning “As a journalist…” of course with a link to your page and neat links to all the things you do. Nice to not pass up an opportunity to promote yourself.

And who cares if April exacerbated the situation? Who cares wtf she tweets about? It sounds like sirdavid was harassing her, I read her twitter and I can’t even fathom how she is to blame in this. He would only know (or care) what she was writing if he was stalking her on twitter. It sounds like he phone stalked her as it is.

**on a complete side bar, how awesome is it that there’s an article and several follow up comments regarding a bunch of 160-characters or less statements a couple of people made?

Caitlin brought up returning a journalist’s call in a “timely fashion”. What exactly is that? 1 hour, 5 hours… 24 hours? I’m curious to hear everyone’s opinion.

Caitlin – Thanks for taking the time to explain the other side of the story. Count me as one person who always appreciates additional perspectives.

In light of your comments I agree that one is no better than the other.

Wow and Wow! Is this behavior a sign of what is to come? Seems like there is a lot of talk about these types of incidents on line, lately.

I am sorry that April had to take such vulgar nastiness…she handled it well. How can one claim to be a professional and act like this? I do understand that people have bad days and say things they don’t mean, no one is perfect (I am guilty of it myself) but not over and over and over again esp. in black and white. You’d think after 1 rude comment, one would begin to consider the consequences of the after shocks.

The whole story/situation kinda freaks me out. Glad that her friends were very supportive to her and that her new followers can see the situation for what it is.
Hat’s off to you April for your forgiving nature.

Much ado about nothing. Still, children should learn to play nice (before they become adults and demonstrate indisputably that they never learned same). There is something here for both sides to learn. Hope it sticks. And remember this little dust up will hang around the net for ever. Did you really want that?

I disagree that April is to blame.

April’s tweets are routinely personal. She tweets with her friends.

This is what many forget. The lines between work and self have melted. Why we call these things “social” media tools. It’s about being social.

So for April to express her frustration to her friends without naming the paper is TO BE EXPECTED.

Treat us like you are HOLY and from the TOP of the food chain and we will react. To our friends. Who will get our frustration.

And we understand that things are recorded for all time. And can’t be “recalled” or “taken back.” Something the “elite” of the dead media world are going to have to learn.

Congrats, April for keeping your cool AND for giving this gentleman a bit of a painful lesson. Good for you.

Hey April, why don’t YOU cool your jets. You come across as pretty mouthy. Just saying.

People, people – this is just ‘handbags’. If you want to know what a bad day in the office is like click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqx0GzUOmEw

First, I think @sirdavid should change his name to @sirfuckwit.

Second, I agree that he was abusive and his remarks were completely unacceptable.

Third, I take offense to April’s saying “Newspapers will get what they deserve.” As someone who loves newspapers, and a former journalist myself, exactly what did you mean by that, April?

I’ve seen a fight on twitter. It’s a fascinating thing to watch.

I call it TWISTICUFFS.

Aside from the breach of professional standards and etiquette, this incident shows what happens when a new media technology like Twitter starts entering the mainstream.

People start using it without understanding or realising the consequences of this mode of communication. There have been several high profile gaffes on Twitter, including the head of the BBC multimedia newsroom announcing senior editorial appointments by mistake.

Yeah, um, wow. This is exactly why I’m real hesitant to get on Twitter in a professional capacity as a journalist. As a hobby it’s a blast. I wouldn’t have cursed at April, of course, but she is instantly on my never-interact-with-this-hack list. ReTweeting a potential contact’s foul Tweets? On company time? And publicly taking a holy ground above the publications she’s also trying to pitch? Man, I’d say she has more repair work to do than David. He’s vile and writes for an outlet that doesn’t matter. But April showed no skills I’d want in my shop. At least David was attempting to do his job.

Oh well, it’s just the Internet. Right?

good catch, Caitlin, on noting that this ‘consultant’ did not give the full history, showing what she said at the start to stir the pot. makes her look a lot worse than him when it all comes out. sure he’s all ranting, but she looks very deceptive. hope her clients notice that.

LOL

I don’t clearly get the point of the conversation, but that guy is really pissed off I know. Good good good. I guess the reporter has just being a superstar awkwkwkwkwkwkwkwkw

…and I thought I was taking a risk tweeting that I was “listening to” a South Park episode while coding. WOW!!! That was over the top and I’m sure the bad press won’t be punishment enough.

Zappa (February 11th, 2009 at 5:43pm)

I generally don’t read the National Post, which is basically the public relations outlet for Stephen Harper and the Canadian Alliance. Kind of like a Canadian version of Fox News. The level of intelligence of their reporters doesn’t surprise me – way to stay above their level April!

–
I’d second that except I don’t read the national post often for the same reasons. Last week I watch a panel which included a writer from the National Post, and I’d have to agree in this case it is a fair assessment (I’m sure there must be exceptions though?)

I remember several of the comments and at one point when he said “let’s go in with guns a blazing” the other pundits almost look at him like he had six heads.

People behave this way in real life, too. I am always astonished when people can’t keep their cool.
Everyone gets annoyed some times but that does not give you license to blow your top/ behave like you are on a VH1 reality show.

@Talia
I certainly agree that “when I say jump, you say how high” is extremely rude, plus of course there’s all the swearing. I’m not excusing that.

Regarding journalists returning calls, that’s probably very true. I do try to return calls – especially when I know they are offering me something exclusive and will be waiting to hear back before trying somewhere else. I don’t feel obligated to reply to every PR pitch if it’s on general release and gone to every media outlet, or if it’s completely untargeted and irrelevant, as so many PR pitches are. If I returned every single PR call and replied to every single PR email I would literally spend the day doing nothing else. I don’t think it’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black. I’d be interested to know how many calls from journalists the average marketer or PR (especially one who is in house rather than at an agency) receives in a day and I’d be astonished if it was anywhere near the number or PR pitches received by the average journalist.

Regarding leaving a story to “an hour before deadline”. No one does that deliberately but the deadline is dictated by when something happens, who else knows about it, and whether you’re writing for the web or print (and if print, daily, weekly or monthly). If it’s a breaking story for a website, sometimes I’ll have 20 minutes to write the story – but then I can probably add company comments as an update to the story any time that day. The next day would certainly be too late.

@Monkey Brad It may be a rhetorical question, but I’ll answer anyway. The whole “why… when I’m not selling” and “newspapers will get what they deserve” lines are extremely offensive. And far from exhibiting the exemplary professional behaviour some commenters are describing, I also think her tweet responses egged him on in a subtle way. She kept her cool, while he lost his temper. So she exhibited more self-control but her underlying attitude was still at fault and her motives far from pure.

@fwick I routinely fill in the name, email and URL field when I leave a comment on any blog so I wasn’t doing any special self-promotion. I actually think that people like to know WHO someone is when they leave a comment – it’s very easy to say whatever you like anonymously. If anything I considered leaving the URL off this time since I wasn’t sure my views would be popular. But I decided I should have the courage to put my real identity to my comments.

@fwick @Stephanie
What’s the definition of a reasonable timeframe in which to return a call? It depends on the industry and the context. The next day might be reasonable in most lines of business or if someone is working on a feature for a weekly or monthly, but it might not be reasonable if you’re working on a news story for the following day’s paper or for the internet.

@Sean Howard
“April’s tweets are routinely personal. She tweets with her friends.”
April’s tweets are not protected, therefore they are not solely personal. They are public.

Christ, no-one comes out of this looking good. ‘Newspapers will get what they deserve’?

Wondering, you said:

“April – if you were so busy, why did you have time to twitter but not time to call? Sometimes I wonder if people twitter just to get attention.”

Seriously? It takes 3 seconds to tweet something, and I can do it from my phone while I’m scarfing down a burger or riding the subway. If I have to call someone, it’s not exactly asynchronous, right? I have to set aside a half hour or so just in case the conversation runs long….it’s just about being efficient.

Joni, others:

Here’s my take on the ‘newspapers will get what they deserve’ statement. Just like the industrial age supplanted many things in agricultural society (handcrafted goods, rural living, being close to the land, etc –> urban living, mass production, mass marketing, blah blah blah), I think that the information/postindustrial age is going to supplant industrial age norms, organizations, ideas, processes and more.

Among those “industrial age” artifacts are: advertising agencies (born because companies that made mass market products needed to communicate difference), newspapers, lots of traditional media actually, on and on and on.

They won’t be destroyed, just supplanted. They’ll be like these Amish communities you see sprinkled throughout PA and OH. It’s not good or bad, just inevitable.

Again, just my take.

It only illustrates how new media has completely broken down the barriers that once existed between ‘ordinary people’ and consumers of media. Everyone is a publisher these days and everyone is a consumer of published materials. It doesn’t matter if the material is published in a newspaper or on a tweet, people will consume it and talk about it.

It also illustrates, at poor David’s expense, how old media – i.e. newspapers – perhaps fail to ‘get’ new media.

Oh, and it finally illustrates that you can’t expect your interactions with people not to end up on the ‘net…

Yeah he overreacted, but she illustrated a problem I have with Twitter: It’s very passive-aggressive.

“I haven’t got time for that” is the catchphrase of GenerationTweet.

Wow, this guy sounds _insane_. Cheers to Ms Dunford, she handled it very calmly and professionally (even though that’s not the right word to describe a Twitter conversation, ever)

this twitter post battle is ridiculous.

and it much of it started from those ‘snarky’ twitter posts.

those ‘subliminal’ shots are also unprofessional. we all understand go berzerk on twitter isn’t the smartest thing to do but when you post things like that it comes off as self-indulgent and passive agggressive insults which could one of the most insulting things to do to a journalist.

when someone is blowing a gasket the last thing you do is tell them to ‘calm down’ or ‘take deep breaths’ which is condescending and clearly escalated the situation.

although i won’t condone losing your mind via twitter; don’t be a snark on twitter or msn or facebook because it’s childish.

Interesting that a marketing person feels so comfortable flipping the bird to an entire industry. Sounds to me like a lack of respect. Nobody is saying, suck up to reporters, but respecting where the internet and social media has (in part) grown from – what’s so bad about that? A tad unprofessional for a social media marketing person, no? Looks to me like TWO people had a bad day yesterday and that maybe TWO people need to take some responsibility. Looks to me like someone took advantage of someone else’s breakdown to put on a marketing show. Or maybe social media = authority to disrespect others? Amazing what sitting behind a key board can encourage. Just look at me – all self-righteous. I think I’ll go stand on York street with a big fog-horn and yell “newspapers will get what they deserve”. Wonder if it will help me get a marketing contract or if I will simply look a tad arrogant.

Just because David used coarse language and April didn’t doesn’t make her any less innocent. Caitlin is completely right.

April, it’s your job to market things. Maybe, you should try thinking about the people who work to help market those things (such as the press, even if it’s negative) and do your job and call him back, even if it’s just to say “No comment” or “I don’t have time.”

You have no idea how hard it is to be a reporter for a newspaper. He probably called you because he felt you were the expert in whatever he was writing about.

One of the most frustrating things is PR and marketing people who don’t do their jobs, and instead play around with their e-mail and TWITTER accounts for the entire day. At least the reporter has a reason to be on Twitter (for instance, waiting for a return phone call or looking for resources/story ideas).

While you were able to keep your calm, you were still just egging him on. You are just as guilty.

A couple of lessons in this interchange.

1. Stress is a matter of perception. Comments or events can cause one person to thrive and another to take a dive.

2. When someone is overwhelmed, they react as opposed to act…can lead to anger/rage very quickly. The 1400 physical & chemical changes that take place can make it difficult to be rational. Cortical inhibition has occurred.

3. Why did this even continue on Twitter for as many tweets as it did? Sometimes when tempers are flaring, it’s wiser to just walk away and resume the discussion when cooler heads (& hearts) prevail.

+1 for the daily twitter drama!

Great business requires great relationships, does that not apply to media as well? I’d say this National Post guy needs a vacation!

As a former reporter and PR guy, there’s no one to defend here. The F bomb vs. essentially a F U to the entire news industry.

I’m a journalist (and I use Twitter) and I understand the whole “lack of respect” argument that some people have thrown out in defense of @sirdavid, but even if someone jabs you (slightly) online, you’ve got to be professional about it.

I almost feel dumb typing this comment because it seems like such an obvious statement that should apply to anyone using Twitter for any reason, period. (And even if @sirdavid felt he needed to make a stink about it — eff bombs? Really?)

Having experienced deadline pressure myself due to wanting a quote from someone who isn’t cooperating in a timely manner, I understand the first 3 seconds of this event. Beyond that it gets kind of crazy. Ah, but any publicity is good publicity right David and April? Adding to next case study slide deck as we speak…

Leaving the taking sides thing alone for now, but interested in the media evolution aspect of all this.

PRs naturally want to be on good terms with reporters from all media, new and otherwise. But I have to agree with some earlier comments about the increasing irrelevancy of print, at least non-coated. On the Maslovian needs hierarchy, print reporters don’t stack-rank very high any more.

To the extent that I purposely “read a newspaper” it is online. I like to pick up the Sunday dog trainer for the funnies, that’s it. Otherwise, I open three papers a day, local, regional, and national, and always at their websites. And I don’t spend much time there.

OTOH I may visit 20 or 30 newspaper sites a day, but following a link from twitter or other social source. This presages doom for daily rags. I wouldn’t give their problems to a monkey on a rock.

I’m saddened by that; my Dad was a newsman with a daily most of his adult life. But I have to be realistic; daily newspapers are not very good at any of their putative purposes; they don’t inform the electorate, they don’t sell eyeballs, and they don’t influence the cultural consensus. Doomed, sezaxon.

So a statement like “newspapers will get what they deserve” isn’t really all that snarky, imo. It’s the truth, and the “deserve” part isn’t a character judgment, just a fact of life. They’re buggy (heh) whips.

Perhaps April might have been more responsive, or less annoyed, but I don’t find anything in David’s behavior that warrants that slack, frankly. Having been a raging dick myself from time to time, I have an acute awareness of how that rolls back on you no matter how Sisyphean your assignment may seem. See also: instant karma.

And as for the storm of commentary about this incident, all I can say is that if it wasn’t for schadenfreude sometimes we’d have no freude at all.

–Ax

Wow! I had someone try to start a fight with me. I just blocked them. I don’t have time for foolishness. My motto is “don’t feed an overfed ego”.

People have gotten way to comfortable trashing each other on Twitter. Fighting via Twitter is for wimps. If you’ve got a problem with someone, I’d rather hear: “I’m going to kick your ass for that. Meet me after school.” Unfortunately that ain’t gonna happen any time soon. However, you could set up a Tweet Fight. See details here: http://bit.ly/gktMW

STILL LMAO at Tweet #7 in stream!