Published by Janine on 03 Apr 2009

When you’re re-writing news – don’t make a mess of the facts

Compare the introductions of these two stories.

From AFP:  Guinea-Bissau delays presidential polls

BISSAU (AFP) — Polls to elect a successor to Guinea-Bissau’s assassinated president Joao Bernardo Vieira were pushed back until the end of June on Wednesday as critics of the army reported increasing abuses.

Former prime minister Francisco Jose Fadul, who also heads an opposition party, said he had been beaten up by men in uniform at his home in an attack that the rights group Amnesty International said was part of a pattern. SOURCE

and

From Wiki News:  Guinea-Bissau to hold elections this June

The prime minister of the western African country of Guinea-Bissau has announced that the country will further postpone elections until June due to increasing violence. Elections are in order to replace the former president, who was assassinated last month. Francisco Jose Fadul, the nation’s former prime minister, says that he has been beaten by men that he claims were in uniform and working for Amnesty International.  SOURCE

Oh dear, spot the deliberate mistake…

(Thanks to Donnacha Delong)

Published by Jenny on 16 Jan 2009

Twitter beats the newswires

The times they are a-changing.

A Twitter user published the first picture from the scene of the New York-Hudson River plane landing.

The caption reads “There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.”

This is freaky.

The BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones has written an excellent article about the use of Twitter as a newswire – which appropriately enough I came across when a friend “twittered” it.

After having been heavily sarcastic about Twitter, I’m actually starting to enjoy it now – especially after installing the Mozilla plugin Twitbin, which makes it so much more user-friendly.

If you really want to, you can follow me being rather dull on Twitter