A lesson for KGW on Social Media

Since my last post, my husband has posted an update on the KGW matter on his Posterous page.

I don't think KGW understands the power of social media. One time I tweeted something about my Comcast bill that I didn't like. Before the day was over, "ComcastBonnie" tweeted me and asked how she could make it better. Another time, I was complaining about how I really wished there was a personal finance software that worked on the Mac that integrated with my cell phone or PDA. I even tweeted to Quicken as an existing customer, explaining my needs and inquiring if there would be any products coming out soon that would help me. The very next day, someone from a company called iggsoftware tweeted me and said "Have you tried iBank? Works with the iPhone". I downloaded the trial, used it for a few days and fell in love. I NEVER heard from Quicken after several attempts, and they lost a customer. When Bank of America sent us a letter saying they were raising our credit card interest rate by 75%, you better believe we went on a screaming terror about it on Twitter, as did MANY people. To B of A's credit, they hired a cadre of agents to scan tweets and deal with the outcry on Twitter. In the end, no one had the authority to make any decisions to change the interest rates on anyone's account, so we walked and took our personal and our company's banking business to our friendly neighborhood community bank where we remain happy customers. The point is, any business in today's world understands the advantages and opportunities inherent in reaching out to people seeking solutions and even to unhappy or angry people. The reason is, a problem resolved, or at least an honest attempt at it often leaves the complainant with the feeling that their patronage matters to someone. Who are you in the community to serve, KGW if not the public? There are A LOT of people who are unhappy about the slant of the KGW minimum wage story. For every person on Twitter who has read our tweets about it, or read this blog, or my husband's blog, there are literally thousands who are angry and aren't doing anything about it. But they do remember and there are other choices for news in the Portland Metro area.

In this day and age when people have choices as consumers of news, why on earth would you a) allow your reporters to engage unprofessionally with viewers on Twitter and b) not have an ombudsman or community liaison to engage with people who have a complaint? What was initially a legitimate complaint about the story (which I won't go into again here) has now turned into a story about KGW. Smart? Not at all.

Originally, I had posted a comment on KGW's comment section of the story page expressing our concerns with the piece. Those comments were removed. We asked @TheSquare who we should contact to discuss our concerns. They tweeted an email address. We wrote the email address and heard nothing. We waited 3 days and never heard back. When we again tweeted to @TheSquare to let them know that no one has responded to our complaint using the avenue THEY PROVIDED, we discovered we were blocked. This prompted my husband to post on his Posterous page. Yeah, we're angry.

So, KGW will run out the clock until the election and it will all go away in a week. But I want it to be known that if you have a complaint about KGW's reporting on something in the future you might be treated like we are being treated. It's unfortunate. Before this we felt KGW was the best news source in the area. Trusting a media outlet is something you take for granted until you find yourself betrayed. And that's EXACTLY how it feels. Like a betrayal of trust. We aren't just "customers", your public are your partners. We WANT KGW to succeed. Your customers can tell you a lot if you will listen. That is the beauty of social media.

Dudley's Going Wobbly

Seriously, he's off his game.

First of all, the Right-Skewing Rasmussen came out with this poll on Monday showing Kitzhaber with a small but significant lead. I attribute this to Dudley's meager and barely adequate performance during the one and only televised debate on KGW. But Nate Silver who, this week, flipped the predicted outcome of the race from Dudley to Kitzhaber as the likely winner showed Dudley already beginning to make his descent down and Kitzhaber shifting up even before the debate on September 27th. In order to overcome the Blue Tide of Oregon Democrats' GOTV efforts, Dudley needs to be up in the polls by a good 5 points or it's a lock for Kitzhaber. That's the reality that the Dudley campaign is grappling with.

So, here Dudley is at the Freethrow Line again and what does his campaign do? Dredge up that wicked little "investigative journalism" piece on KGW's "The Square" explaining away what we all heard him say about Oregon's minimum wage, dismissing it as just an editing job. In fact, he uses the KGW reporter's own words in his brand new ad "Don't". Let's be clear. This is why letting an inaccurate piece of journalism float out there, largely unaddressed and uncorrected, is such a bad thing. Leaving aside for the moment, the appearance that KGW is just a media flack for a candidate, the "Don't" ad claims that "Kitzhaber highly edited Dudley's words" and cites the Oregonian on Oct. 11th.












Really?

The Oregonian piece quoted in the "Don't" ad pictured ACTUALLY reads thus:

"The fact is, the Kitzhaber ad does take some highly edited snippets from a rambling answer that Dudley gave to a questioner about the minimum wage back on Sept. 9 - and that Democrats have used against him ever since." Watching Dudley's ad, you'd get the feeling that Kitzhaber sat in a dark, smoke-filled room somewhere and edited the piece himself. Laughably, Dudley's campaign cherry-picked what they wanted from the article and left behind the nuggets that buttress THE FACTS. Mapes goes on to repeat what anyone with a brain and basic comprehension skills already knew:

"But the Kitzhaber campaign could point to parts of Dudley's answer that buttress their ad. The commercial quotes Dudley as saying that "having the highest minimum wage in the country negatively impacts the state." You can see from the transcript (or the Youtube video of his statement) that it is reasonable to think Dudley was agreeing with a questioner who expressed unhappiness about the minimum wage."

...it is reasonable to think because Dudley's mouth moved and his words said he was agreeing with a questioner who expressed unhappiness about the minimum wage.

Enough with this foolishness. First of all, whoever is responsible for the original KGW piece needs to, at long last, make a correction on this story! Stop painting the sentient, intelligent voters as unable to understand what we heard. The reporter in the story, or WHOEVER is responsible at KGW, edited the original video in a fashion to "prove" that the Kitzhaber people edited the video, and then gave a platform for Dudley to respond to it. It's disgusting, appalling journalism. And NOW, Dudley himself is using a snippet in his ad to attack his opponent. KGW should be concerned that it looks like someone there is in the tank for Dudley and I just don't think that's a good policy for a TV station broadcasting over the public airways.

But of course, the desperate Dudley camp is pulling out it's "big guns" now that HE is down in the polls. And KGW gave them a nice sound byte to do so.

KGW - FIX THIS NOW!

Next on the blog, yeah that claim that Kitzhaber wants to tax the homeless is a load of garbage too.

More Honesty Problems

Next time you see the Chris Dudley ad "Deserve", you might pay closer attention to a certain Oregonian quote:














Of course Team Dudley didn't include the ENTIRE quote, the rest of which reads:

... and state government appeared powerless to help.

That would be the REPUBLICAN-controlled Legislature aka "State Government".

Just want to supply you with the TRUTH. When Dudley tries to tar Kitzhaber with "negative campaigning", he's at best obfuscating.

Tell me again how Chris Dudley is an outsider? He seems like just another politician to me.

Added by Bodiegroup:

I'd add to that that in every one of Dudley's attacks, pay careful attention to the dates of quotes or statistics and ask yourself why each one is post 9/11...

It appears that Dudley has a "PRE 9/11 mentality. Maybe you should ask him who was running the US when all of these horrible stats happened in Oregon and EVERY OTHER STATE in the nation.