I wish I’d been online at the weekend and spotted the following story first, because it’s probably my favourite example of national newspapers completely screwing up reporting on Twitter.
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.
Meanwhile No Rock And Roll Fun has a great detailed write-up of the complete article.
Even though the story has been removed from the site, the Google cached copy is currently still available.
The truly sad thing is that many people were pointing out the problems with articles this bad years ago. In December 2008, I wrote about ‘Probably the worst article on Twitter in the world’.
I’m beginning to suspect some kind of journalistic conspiracy – possibly due to the fact @ashtonkutcher has more followers than the UK newspaper industry. Either that or stories about websites are still seen as a bit of quick filler to be rushed through and stuck somewhere to fill a gap. Either way, is it really that hard to find a journalist, writer or blogger who actually uses and understands Twitter?