How To Be An Old Media Bully. A Primer.

UPDATE: Seems GPB has abandoned their attempt at a “two way street” and removed all comments and commenting from Bill Nigut’s blog post referenced in this post and associated hyperlinks. Too bad. Loved the “Whatever Saruman” one! 

Bill Nigut is “thrilled” to be back on the airwaves of radio, via WRAS. That makes one person in Georgia. The rest of us? Not so much. (See the comments, coming fast and furious, at his blog post trumpeting his latest broadcasting theft thrill.)

Mr. Nigut’s on-air and in-real-life persona has always been loud, large, and obnoxious. He’s that person who insists on being heard through the din of a crowded networking event or cocktail party. Sucks the wind right out of any space, and takes it all for himself.

It helps that he’s a tall guy, but Nigut can bray and preen with the best of ’em. I once made the mistake of walking past Bill Nigut and Neal Boortz chatting together at some random Atlanta Press Club event. I was hurled three city blocks away by the gasbaggery posturing alone.

Nigut makes claim to being a champion for pretty much everything and everyone he can think of: the helpless, the homeless, the voiceless, the poor, but especially Richie Rich Chamber-types, in his windy GPB blog post declaring his latest radio show intentions with WRAS, awww shucks, ma’am style:

I am thrilled to be back in radio and hope you’ll join me to meet extraordinary people, hear important ideas and explore the rich arts and cultural work being done in Atlanta and Georgia. It should be fun; it should be illuminating, and if I do it right, it should make us all just a little more aware of what a remarkable place we live in.

Beware a wolf in sheep’s clothes. Nigut is merely an old media bully worming his way into a place, space and time where he is not wanted because he believes his own hype, and is still in love with the sound of his own voice, and has sorely missed hearing it bellowing hither and yon from whatever Atlanta microphone he can grab first before anyone else has a chance to get there. Everyone knows this, because they’re watching it happen. In real time, more or less, given the enduring popularity of the #SaveWRAS hashtag.

GPB stole programming out of the mouths, minds and hearts of numerous Georgia State University students, and took it for a very select, very few one old media talking heads. No one’s believing a wisp of spin put on the matter by anyone at GSU or GPB leadership. They’re operating in an echo chamber, as that deafening sound you don’t hear anywhere in Atlanta is anyone other than Bill Nigut and Teya Ryan themselves coming to their own sorry little defense of what they’ve done to raid WRAS.

The best thing Bill Nigut can possibly do for his rapidly fraying Georgia media legacy, and trust me, he surely thinks he’s still got a shot at one, is to give the programming of WRAS back to the kids of GSU. Now.

Student Press Law Center Questions Legitimacy of GSU/GPB Agreement To Run WRAS

 

The Student Press Law Center’s executive director, Frank LoMonte, has sent a blistering, scathing really, 5-page letter to Georgia State University president Mark Becker declaring GSU’s agreement (hammered out in great secrecy and urgency by GSU and GPB so GPB could grab GSU’s student-run station, WRAS, and hand it over to the grownups of GPB) essentially wrong on every possible level, and merely the paper result of ragingly arrogant and “tone-deaf,” possibly illegal, behaviors on the part of Becker. And some equally bad lawyerin’ on the part of the GSU attorney, Kerry Heyward.

From the letter:

Your (Becker’s) remarks as quoted in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on May 7 are, quite frankly, contemptuous and tone-deaf. Your assertion that “anything with this level of complexity and this level of benefit really is not the kind of thing you can play out in a public forum” is exactly, 100 percent wrong. Things that are “beneficial” will be understood and welcomed by the people they are intended to benefit, unless you hold those people — your students — in such low regard that you believe they are incapable of being reasoned with.

LoMonte then goes on to urge GSU and GPB to not try to get rid of any of their documents associated with their agreement, as he’s gonna sue to the crap out of them. Possibly.

Take time to read the document in its entirety. The SPLC is making all the right legal moves to shut down not only poorly constructed legal agreements, but also, hopefully, the petite bourgeoisie criminals plaguing state organizations such as GPB and GSU. 

Free America

On freedom.

During the tedium of kids’ long, weekend sporting events (the wait around to wait around parts) the team moms’ thoughts turn to… Edward Snowden, whistleblowing, and the NSA. Naturally enough! Well, not really, but it can happen every now and then.

After the subject was broached to me by another news-savvy mom, along the lines of: Edward Snowden – traitor or hero?, I realized framing the Snowden whistle-blowing saga in that way (traitor or hero?) has me in a bottleneck. As I simply cannot answer that question. As it is an infinitely vast issue I refuse to frame in that way – merely boiling infinity (moreorless) down to two simple choices and/or components.

But in the spirit of putting everything in their simplistic little boxes I will now say that I think of Edward Snowden as a dark angel. Sent to tell us Americans we are by no means free. Nor do we enjoy freedom. At all. And to pity the fool who thinks otherwise.

Where do we go now? As if we could answer THAT question.

A Piece Of One’s Own Action

You know what’s a little scary? This is:

While visiting my bank today (and I’m not going to link to them because I truly don’t want to get my “personal” banker in trouble; he’s a good guy) I was surprised to see just how much our bank(s) know about us. And how much data they’re storing. And likely selling to whomever. Or heck, giving away too, to the Justice Department, just like Facebook, Google, AT&T, etc. And those are just a few of the server farms I “contribute” to.

During our sit-down today, my “personal” banker quietly turned his computer screen towards me, so that I could see everything on the screen too, as we went along with a seemingly innocuous bit of business.

Wow! That bank is keeping all kinds of information on me/us. They know a scary amount of stuff about my life over the time they’ve had me as a customer.

And they had a very nice, er, “content management system” for it all too. It’s all just one click away. For anyone with access to that “content management system.”

Dammit! I want a piece of my own action back.

Black Social Speaks

Russell Simmons removes a (what I assume to be a parody) video regarding Harriet Tubman. And apologizes for offending sensibilities. Probably for the best. Black social slapped that stupid down, fast and hard.

If you need an explanation of “black social” then you probably need WaySouth Media’s consulting service

Loose DeKalb Lips Make Waves (Of Oppression) For AJC

Ahoy! Botched metaphor. I know.

Loose lips might sink ships, circa 1942, but they never torpedoed any ships of journalism. To the contrary. Lip flappers, whistleblowers, gossips and media whores power and embolden entire journalism empires, causing ships to rise off of copy tides. Just look at the numbers for the Guardian empire lately. Off the charts!

Over in less high profile seas, say here down South, in today’s 1-minute news cycle there really is no such thing as a genuine “scoop” brought about by wildly exclusive information. Except when there (rarely) is, of course.

But don’t tell that to the powers-that-be at the AJC, as they’re lashing any remaining, hardworking reporter-bees left on their deck to the mast and thrashing them mightily, as punishment for having failed to sight enough scoops in their cruddy little scopes.

Two independent sources have now told me how Atlanta Journal & Constitution reporters, good ones, are being “written up” (or threatened with some type of disciplinary action) for failing to bring home the bacon fast enough. Failing to reel in genuine news “scoops.”

(“Scoops” being 100% exclusive 411 about specific, non-public events – but before the event occurs, allowing for a news organization to be first out of the gate on disseminating word of that particular news situation; to “own the story” in other words, something that’s increasingly hard to do in our hyper-connected world unless Edward Snowden or Julian Assange just happens to waltz by your office and dump raw intel on your desk. And “written up” being a documented threat by one’s superior to take away one’s job, rank, authority, paycheck and/or general livelihood should you, the super’s underling, not perform in some sort of, subjectively, better manner.)

Mark Winne at WSB-TV, for example, often gets genuine scoops about soon-to-be-made arrests by various Georgia law enforcement, and is thus frequently the first and only reporter in place for that classic, high-value video, law enforcement-enhancing moment – ye olde perp walk.

Of course it’s one of those open secrets in Atlanta old media circles that Winne’s brother is an FBI or GBI agent (I forget which agency) who tips his family member, Mark, off to lots of special events soon to happen. If that’s the case, they’ve had a lock on a good-visuals franchise for years now, and will continue at that game for as long as the gig works, I suppose.

I Spy Scandals In ATL Media

There are two lovely, slaphappy, public office-related messes playing-out right now in Atlanta you won’t want to miss a moment of: the APS cheating scandal and Governor Deal’s trail of dubious dealings.

Thing is, the media attentions applied to both situations are so random and all-over-the-place it’s like Dick Cheney on a quail hunt; you never know where the shots are coming from, nor what they’re going to hit.

There is no clearinghouse of information, so you’re bound to miss something… if you’re not paying close attention.

Investigative journalism is an odd bird. Although news farms like to say they get their content from some pristine well of hard work, that’s not really the case.

Most get their news from the other news farm down the street. And most scandals erupt because people are gossipy tattletales and can’t keep a secret.

And sometimes people will even tell a journalist if they’re a hardcore whistleblower with stuff like paperwork to flaunt, and not just your common trash-talker over at Manuel’s.

But ultimately, it’s up to a near-solo, working journalist to keep the fires of an investigative situation burning… with loads of  seasoned skepticism and doubt mixed-in with better-than-yours sources.

Says longtime, Atlanta investigative reporter, Jim Walls of Atlanta Unfiltered and the AJC :

The trick is to know your topic thoroughly, keep asking questions when things don’t add up, and sometimes even when they seem to. Focus on what people have done, not what they say they’ve done. And do not assume that the most likely explanation is correct, or at least 100% correct. There are nuances to everything.

Social Media and the Growing APS Mess

This particular social media swirl is playing out on my territory, and promises to challenge me to TRY to keep up! But you know I’m the woman for that job.

So, let’s over-simplify until I can do a full (video) report on this matter: Atlanta Public Schools (APS) is in a big brewhaha of a mess. It’s a two-prong mess. I won’t go into full mess details here, as that’s the AJC’s job. But first is the CRCT cheating scandal, and second is the APS board’s probationary status.

All could come to a lovely head of face-to-face steam at tomorrow’s APS board meeting, open to the public at 4:30pm, FYI. At APS. (Stay tuned for that live eventing. I may live-stream here. Haven’t decided yet if I want to venture out from behind the laptop yet though. And come early to sign-in. Who knows what APS might do about the posted times.)

What’s fascinating, in that horrible fascinating way, is being able to watch the social media tactics and approaches (I’m loath to call them *strategies* as it’s all rather amateurish right now) present… almost in real time. Even I may not be able to follow it all. But I’m sure gonna try.

Let’s explore, with a handy scoring system, where we are so far:

1.) APS social media scorecard – 1. And they get a score of 1 (out of 10) only because they have at least established a Twitter feed for their sunny-side-up bits. Sorry, APS. But you haven’t even touched your Facebook page since the summer of 2009. Not much going on your website. And APS Superintendent Beverly Hall’s letter explaining the accredidation probationary status APS is now operating under arrived at homes via the Backpack Network. Call Hermione for a better spell soon, APS. Or you’ll be overwhelmed. If you’re not already.

2.) A Facebook Group called Atlanta School Board: Step Up or Step Down already has 266 members, and was pointed out to me by an APS teacher, so seems some APS teachers are banding together with APS parents. And heating-up neighborhood discussion boards and email chains and petitions. That’s good. I give ’em a 6. They’ve got a’ways to go to keep up with this other group that’s sprung from the PR mess though.

3.) ReCallAPS, so far, is posting fewer Facebook friends than the above group, but I’m certain they will catch-up and surpass. They’ve got a blog going already, and a Twitter feed; Twitter being what will fuel the fires the fastest. Their message seems wishy-washy though, so I’m just giving them a 5. For right now.

For what it’s worth, social media is everyone’s field to play in for communications – crisis or otherwise. Have at it. Make it work for you. Just know it’s a game you don’t want to be on the sidelines merely watching.

Iran and the Internet: A Conversation With Ariel Silverstone

Atlanta, GA. June 22, 2009: WaySouth Media discusses Iran and the internet with IT security expert, Ariel Silverstone. Silverstone explains how the internet functions in Iran… and elsewhere within government and citizenry.

Silverstone also discusses pending United States internet-related legislation, communication tools and privacy issues, global engineering initiatives, YouTube, Twitter, media, and the future of the internet-related communications. Silverstone’s blog is here.

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Atlanta Sickened By Crime Wave

From Kyle Keyser of AtlantansTogether.org: Atlanta crime victims tell their stories. In full.  No soundbites. Scary stuff. I would know.

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Bob Lefsetz Eviscerates Gene Simmons

Music industry analyst Bob Lefsetz takes a moment to efficiently dispense of not only Gene Simmons, but any cobwebs left of the music industry as it used to be… in theYouTube clip posted below from the recent Canadian Music Week.

Lefsetz, or Ugly Bobby as I like to call him, is my second fave media analyst, falling in right after the also rather annoying Jeff Jarvis. Lefsetz writes the astonishing blog, Lefsetz Letter. Subscribe. You will be annoyed, but rarely disappointed.

There are days when I cannot take Bobby’s relentless, sometimes 3x daily, streams of text-only rants about the state of every media industry on the planet. I’m just not up to it all… every single day. His posts are angry, they name names, they are slogging, rather unpoetic unattractiveness back to male adolescence.

Most of the time though, his posts possess a passion that simply astonishes me in its relentless verbosity, and can, like a cyclone crashing in under the radar, reduce me to tears with a crushing, inevitable humanity.

And yeah, life with someone like that gets simply exhausting, and it must be turned-off just to unload the fucking dishwasher. Else we get swept away too.

Needless to say, Bobby’s typing morphs nicely to the verbal, and he gives good panel. At Candadian Music Week, this past week, Ugly Bobby just shuts DOWN that disgusting hag of a shill, Gene Simmons of KISS. Enjoy the squirm!

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Someone IS Trying To Break Our Hearts

These are the faces of the human beings who have been led by those who failed to see the vast chasm as they drove straight at it. WARNING: This slide show of the faces of the people of the newsroom of The Rocky Mountain News as they got word that they were being shut-down for good will make you cry.

And yeah, I lay the blame on leadership and management that failed their people. They failed to show vision and adaptability. They simply were not good enough.

Solving Atlanta’s Crime Statistics Mystery

As I handed my kid her Sunday morning plate of blueberry pancakes and simultaneously wrenched the remote out of her hand so I could tune-in the Georgia Gang (I’m getting really good at this maneuver), away goes Sponge Bob and up pops Phil Kent, who was deep in the momentary thrall of calling Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin “a liar.”

Kent says Mayor Franklin is telling outright lies when she says, as she did again recently, that crime in Atlanta is, statistically, down. Kent says Franklin is lying because crimes in the City of Atlanta are actually up, but there’s no way to prove this because APD is not providing accurate stats for interested parties – the “interested parties” being local journalism outlets such as The Sunday Paper and the AJC; that any efforts by journos-with-money to find reliable and accurate crime stats are being thwarted by APD and/or, I presume, City Hall.

Kent cited The Sunday Paper’s recent story by editor Stephanie Ramage about crime stats in Atlanta’s intown neighborhoods as his journo-source in this matter. In the story, Ramage is hinting of a gross cover-up or manipuation by APD of the actual crime stats in Atlanta – a deeply serious charge with criminal implications for those involved, and an historical issue former APD deputy chief  Louis Arcangeli has never been shy about going on the record about, at the expense of his APD job too. From The Sunday Paper:

“You are talking about a department that has a proven, documented track record of manipulating the numbers, so you have to consider that the police department might be doing it again,” says Louis Arcangeli, a former deputy chief of the APD who now teaches criminal justice at Georgia State University. “The amount of public concern is completely at odds with the numbers, and that’s troubling.”

(And the matter of The Sunday Paper being a credible news org was laughingly and haughtily dismissed by Jeff Dickerson on today’s Georgia Gang episode, but that’s a whole other can ‘o worms for a whole other blog post right now. Still, what else we got to help us out in the urgent and critical need for data-driven, reliable journalism? The Panda Press (AJC)?. Thus my plea here. Keep reading.)

Whatever Kent says, Mayor Franklin’s numerous attempts to cite magical statistics about crime in Atlanta are not getting any leverage in the court of public perception. Citizens simply feel crime is out of control. Everyone feels victimized by crime. (This I know from my own citizen reporting on the matter.) People feel Chief Pennington is out-to-lunch and indifferent to their perception. Pennington sure doesn’t help when he says citizens concerns are based on citizens’ “misperceptions.”

To heck with Chief Pennington though, as Atlantans Together Against Crime (ATAC) continues to enlist thousands to their grass-roots cause, with the next ATAC rally scheduled for Monday, February 23rd at 5pm at the corner of MLK and Joseph Lowery.

The big problem for Mayor Franklin is that the stories from the droves of crime victims in Atlanta are now being heard. It doesn’t really matter if crime is up or down, come to think about it. The thing that matters is, because of social media and the networks created in that medium, stories can now be told in new media ways they never were before. The pain of the people comes through loud and clear online… now that harrowing tales of death and survival on the mean street of the ATL are so easily told and shared. Yes, despite City Hall’s best efforts to tone down the citizenry’s rhetoric, voices will be heard.

But that’s one piece of the new media pie in the matter of Atlanta’s magical crime stats. The other is the hard, cold reality of what the crime stats really are now. Who do you believe? Are they up or are they down? Let’s put the matter to Professor Leonard Witt and Kennessaw State University (KSU). Why this place? Why this person?

Because Witt and KSU just received some nice bucks (1.5 million to be precise) to create The Center for Sustainable Journalism. Given the mission and the message of The Center for Sustainable Journalism (CSJ), seems Atlanta’s mysterious crime stats would be the perfect place to apply the resources KSU now has.

From the press release about The Center for Sustainable Journalism (CSJ):

KENNESAW, Ga. (February 7, 2009) In the midst of an annual conference designed to pinpoint the Southeast’s niche in the digital media revolution, Kennesaw State University announced receipt of a $1.5 million gift from the Harnisch Foundation to establish a center to research and develop innovative ways to produce and distribute news.

Kennesaw State President Daniel S. Papp announced the award and the creation of The Center for Sustainable Journalism Feb. 7 at the SoCon09 “Unconference” attended by more than 300 business, non-profit and media professionals, bloggers and digital media enthusiasts.

The center will be overseen by Leonard Witt, Kennesaw State’s Robert D. Fowler Distinguished Chair in Communication, eminent scholar and associate professor, who organized the SoCon09 conference. Witt is a pioneer in developing community-supported journalism models and exploring the potential of online social networks to disseminate news.

Full press release here.

Crime and the APD’s ability to control it aside, what is sustainable in Atlanta now are the networks and the crowd sourcing and the social media structure that would allow for deep and comprehensive dissemination of the journalistic, data-driven findings of a journalism project that would help the citizens of all metro Atlanta  get to the heart of our mysterious and sometimes magical crime stats situation.

So what’dya say, CSJ? Wanna get crackin’ on tackling a community-based journalism project right in your own backyard? Enquiring minds need to know, and it might help a lot of people sleep better at night. And I’m always good for a quickie video package or two.

Bush To Screw America Up To Very Last Minute

Quote du Jour. Possibly of Year.

Yeah, we are robbing Peter to pay Paul, he said. But that’s OK because Paul is dead.

The above bon motes are from Elliot Eisenberg, an economist with the National Association of Home Builders. Eisenberg then went on to say, according to the AJC, ‘Atlanta should continue to build even though demand isn’t there.’

Full story is here. Read it and weep.

Still not sure if Eisenberg is brilliant or a babbling idiot who’s just making shit up off the top of his head. But that’s the whole economic mess in a nutshell, eh? Just who ARE the smartest people in the room? No one seems to be able to tell the court jester from the king anymore.

Atlanta Fire Station #23 To Be Closed

Ok, it’s official. Despite sending out possibly THE most convoluted, confusing press release ever written (so I won’t bother you with duping it over here, even if I could as it came in as a .docx file) the Atlanta Fire and Rescue Dept. confirmed the closure of Fire Station #23 on Howell Mill Road by order of Mayor Franklin. A CL blog post about it all is here.

A petition to protest this closure is here. Sign it if you care to. I wonder what fire and rescue unit(s) respond to Atlantic Station now? Sure would be hate to get caught in one of those high-rises and have to rely on Atlanta Fire and Rescue to come get me out of there. Lord knows where the help would be coming from.

See more on this matter in post below.

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin’s FAILURE To Communicate

NOTE: Atlanta City Council members can’t really be expected to communicate what they don’t know. I heard from District 9’s councilperson, Felicia Moore, today Dec. 2nd at 1pm that she knew nothing of fire station closings in the city, BUT that the Mayor Franklin could close stations without Council approval. Or notification for that matter. (As she did with Station #7 earlier this year.) So this post should really be titled Atlanta Mayor’s FAILURE To Communicate. With her council or her citizenry.

ORIGINAL POST: We citizens of the City of Atlanta have a better chance of being alerted to a terrorist’s bomb in India than we do to the proposed closing of an Atlanta fire station. This time, the ax is being waved over the head of Fire Station #23 on Howell Mill Road, near the HEAVY INDUSTRIAL AND RAILYARD AREA, let me repeat that in case anyone doesn’t get the HAZARDOUS WASTE POSSIBILITIES… HEAVY INDUSTRIAL AND RAILYARD AREA of the City of Atlanta.

Yet here in the age of the Internets, not a single communique was sent from our City Council members to the citizenry of the areas effected by this proposed closing. Only the quick action of a concerned neighbor who’d heard a rumor and got on the neighborhood discussion board alerted the constituency and the ‘hood about the proposed closing, and to the closing now being an agenda item on TODAY’S council meeting at 1pm… less than two hours away from me typing this. From the neighborhood discussion board:

Fire Station 23 found out about the proposed closing on Thanksgiving morning, so there was no prior word or discussion about it as far as they knew. They don’t have any details… no proposed closing date, no confirmation, nothing. What they do know is that this issue is on the City Council Meeting agenda at 1pm TODAY. The meeting can be seen on the local city government channel. Someone thought it was also viewable live on the internet, so if anyone can find it, please post it.

Agenda is posted here: http://apps.atlantaga.gov/citycouncil/agendas2.htm Due to the incredible number of items on it, I still haven’t found it mentioned. If anyone can isolate where it is, please pass that along.

After the results of today’s meeting are known, the area neighborhoods/neighbors can better organize/start efforts to rally for Fire Station 23 staying completely open.

Not unbelievable, but inexcusable. Hell, Station #23 services the very railyard area of Atlanta that burned so spectacularly in Gone With The Wind. If Broke Atlanta closes station #23 and it all burns to the ground for real this time again, I’ll alert the media on Twitter I suppose. You can find the commemorative plate on eBay here.

UPDATE: Someone from council person’s Claire Muller’s office returned my call about this matter. She too could not find an item on today’s agenda directly related to Fire Station #23, although she did say such an item could be “buried” somewhere. Such as in an item about “budgeting.” Imagine that. She promised to ask around and find out if such a proposal would fall under the sphere of the Finance Committee or the Public Safety committee. And call me back, as she promptly did with my initial phone call to Muller’s office. Close the sunroof; pigs is a’flyin’.

LATEST: Kathy from Muller’s office called again. To let me know that Councilperson Muller knows not much about this whole matter. That Muller had just heard chatter, same as the ‘hood. That it’s likely an “administrative” issue and not a “legislative” one. She passed the buck to the Mayor’s office and told me to call the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, Greg Giornelli. At this point, I think I’ll let some paid journo take over the matter.

VERY LATEST: The Atlanta fire people weigh-in on the matter. It’s true. They’re going to shut-down Fire Station #23. In 30 days! Pray no hazardous waste EVER comes through this town, Terminus, again. Scary stuff. From a Battalion Chief’s email to the community:

We were notified on Thanksgiving morning that Station #23 will be closed within the next 30 days due to the budget cuts. I am currently in contact with my Battalion Chief and the Fire Chief as to providing you and the other community groups with the most accurate information. Chief Coxton (my BC) has offered to meet with you or answer any questions that you may have.
Here is the e-mail that I received from him:…

Captain, you may direct any question or concerns to me and I will keep the Fire Chief informed. Please provide our citizens with my cell phone number and email address. Also, if a community group or NPU would like for myself or Chief Cochran to attend one of their meeting just let me know. Additionally, provide all citizens with as much factual information as possible, share the information from our meetings. Do not report to citizens that you do not know anything, we want to share as much information as possible.

Thanks,

Bernard Coxton, Battalion Chief
City Hall East
675 Ponce Deleon Ave N.E.
Suite 2001
Atlanta, GA. 30308-1807
(404)853-7060 Office
(404)227-7396 Cell.
(404)853-7061 Fax
bcoxton@atlantaga.gov <mailto:bcoxton@atlantaga.gov

Three cheers to the Atlanta Fire Department for bothering to communicate willingly with the people they serve. So deeply sorry that our bloated, broke city government can’t move them into the Mayor’s communications department. They not only know how to put out fires, but how to use email and cell phones in the digital era.

CNN Broke Twitter?

I bet @ricksanchezcnn finally broke Twitter for good. The fragile thing wasn’t meant for heavy MSM lifting. Between Sanchez on CNN at 3pm and the anti-Motrin ad moms today, the damn thing may never recover. Call some lawyers quick!

Yankees In Georgia?!! How Did They Ever Get In?!

From Palmetto Scoop:

So perhaps now is as good a time as any to lend our expertise to our neighbors in Georgia, who The Palmetto Scoop has learned will be receiving a massive influx of Buckeyes over the next few weeks. That’s because president-elect Barack Obama has reportedly dispatched all of his Ohio staffers to the Peach State to help Democrat Jim Martin knock off incumbent GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss.

“We’re setting up our entire field team again,” said one emboldened Obama staffer in Ohio. “I’m coming to Georgia and bringing several hundred of my friends with me.”

More here.

Latest Polling – Obama “Implodes” in Georgia

Oops. From the latest IA/PP poll:

September 11, 2008 — A new InsiderAdvantage / Poll Position survey of likely registered voters in Georgia indicates a steep decline for the Barack Obama campaign and likely explains why the candidate is moving resources out of Georgia and into other states.

The poll of 506 registered likely voters, weighted for age, race, and gender, was conducted Wednesday evening. It has a margin of error of +/- 4%

Q. If the election were held today, would you vote for:

John McCain: 56%
Barack Obama: 38%
Other: 2%
Undecided: 4%

InsiderAdvantage’s Matt Towery: “This is a huge slide from what had been, in our prior surveys, a relatively close race. The reason is simple—Obama lost serious ground in virtually every demographic.

Full story/analysis here.