This Just In

In a discussion yesterday with the Lemke Journalism School, I said that one of the areas that we need more quantitative research into regarding Net Media is the impact of brand.

When a story is reported from Participatory Media, at what point does it become "real"? I argue that for all the speed of Twitter, it won't flash over until a Legacy or highly respected Net Media outlet manned by journalists verifies. What we have is a tipster-confirmation system.

Well, didn't take 24 hours to get a test case. Twitter feed is the first reports of a significant layoff at the Mothership in Bentonville. First Tweets, they're just rumor until one of the Tweeters posts the official memo. Shortly thereafter, Arkansas Business enters the fray -- interestingly on the Twitter platform, Tiny URL'ing to their website.

About eight hours later, the regular media started to jump in with conventional reports. But the local Fayetteville Flyer had the jump about an hour after the Tweets began.

So again, at what point was it real? For the digital natives, the moment it started moving on the Participatory Media; if not, when it hit their local blog. Obviously as it migrates quickly into the Legacy Media at 10 p.m., it is out there.

Thinking of the force multiplier effect, did the Tweets and rumors alert our local media and send them into action, or was it the arrival of the WMT presser.

Speaking of the Legacy, the Morning News of NWA, who has had a post when ready policy, posted their latest update rewrite to their lead story at 7:31 p.m. tonight. Judging from comments, they hit the story on-line around 11:30 a.m. They've had time to build the business community reaction piece, which dropped around 6:21 p.m.

Contrasting philosophy, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette moved a brief on its website at 4:41 p.m., but referenced:

Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

Thank you for coming to the Web site of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. We're working to keep you informed with the latest breaking news.

The second line is an interesting detail -- to be honest, I haven't checked lately to see if there's been a policy change, or was this short story a one-off because of the significance of the cuts.

Oh, and by the way, for those out there in America -- Walmart with all its solid profits during a downturn laying off people at the HQ. With absolutely no pun intended, that should be taken as a sign of an economic apocolypse.

Here close to the epicenter, we would have considered Walmart bullet proof, or at least recession proof.

Now, who will you believe? In many comments and Tweets, people are opining that this is just Walmart doing some adjustment. Part of the change is pulling home to Bentonville some jobs that have been remote from the headquarters.

As they say, developing . . .