Web 2.0 Bites Clintons

The unfortunate remarks by Hillary Clinton regarding the 1968 Democratic campaign are a teaching moment for the media and news sources. Today's Washington Wire -- one of the note blogs of the Wall Street Journal -- gives the play-by-play of how her quote from an editorial board meeting in South Dakota became a world wide story.

This is a cautionary tale of technology. Just because you can stream something live does not mean you should. Clinton's meeting was made available to any media to listen in. These settings are often informal and somewhat off the record for exact comments. Often, they function as backgrounder opportunities for a candidate.

Not when the whole wide world is watching. Or not watching in the case of the media caravan with Clinton. They were shuttled off to a nearby location with WiFi to listen. The combination of poor bandwidth and dull content sent many of the journalists to the pasta bar for lunch. That is, until their Blackberrys started going off with references to a New York Post story that was already up on Drudge.

Seems the remote journalists weren't having issues hearing the Senator loud and clear, and she had uttered the assassination reference. This sends the in-country pack rushing up to the Clinton campaign for reaction. Let the clean-up begin.

Here's a payoff from the story:

And while a couple reporters — who had managed to stick with the streaming press conference — mentioned that they found her assassination reference slightly strange, few on the trail thought it would be the lead on any of their stories that day.

The fact that it did become big news is illustrative of journalistic competition in the Internet age. The entire pack of reporters sent to watch Clinton’s every move had somehow gotten beat, and forced into following a New York Post reporter who was nowhere near the campaign, but who, apparently, had a much-better Internet connection.

(A personal aside: There are some days I link the article for reference to those who want more, and certainly to provide a citation to quotes I've copied. Today my colleagues, this article is REQUIRED reading. So much so, here's the link again if you missed it at the top.)

The uber-moral for SIDs? Just because you can stream that post-game press conference live doesn't mean you should. And if you do, make sure your coaches and athletes understand they are live not just to the room of familiar faces that may or may not use their words against them.

The subtle lesson here may be the most important. For the Senator, it was a Post reporter that posted the story that launched a thousand links. It easily could have been one of those Cheetos people. Sure, it would have taken longer for the pajama media to be taken seriously and reposted by regular media -- but one a gaffe like this one they would have. Just ask Dan Rather.

I know the term Web 2.0 gets tossed around a lot at times like this -- it really wasn't the social web that caused this event. However, it was Web 2.0's enabling advanced technology -- streaming media, portable access, immediate messaging and hyperlinked media sources -- that caused it.

Happy Memorial Day weekend.