Sunday Express makes a Twit of itself

Unbelievably, it appears to have taken two Sunday Express typists, David Jarvis and David Stephenson, to pull together an inept wannabe-expose into the BBC's use of Twitter:

IS THE BBC RUN BY A BUNCH OF TWITTERS?

Do you see? It's a joke, because 'Twitter' sounds a bit like 'twit'. I wonder why nobody has noticed that before, eh?

STAFF at the BBC are sending thousands of Twitter messages – even though they are not reaching anyone.

What does that actually mean?

The BBC Radio 2 site, which gathers messages, or “tweets”, from presenters such as Chris Evans, Jonathan Ross and Alan Carr, has no followers.

The Radio 2 site actually sends the odd Tweet from staff at Radio 2 about the programmes, but not by or from Chris Evans. Oh, and the "no followers"? 12,470 at time of writing.

That's a bit of a miscount. Or perhaps lie.

Or maybe David and David are confused. There is a Twitter account called BBCRadio2 (without the underscores), which is unofficial. And even that account - with no tweets at all - has got 155 followers. It isn't following anyone. Could that be where the confusion has set in?

But even the Sunday Express wouldn't confuse 'a fake account not following anyone' with 'a genuine account not being followed by anyone', would they?

It turns out they might be confused:

The BBC Radio 5 Live site, run by presenter Victoria Derbyshire, has just two.

As this screengrab shows, Victoria is following just two people. But, erm, she's being followed by over three and a half thousand.

It gets worse, though:

Other Twitter sites at the Corporation uncovered by the Sunday Express include BBC Tamil, BBC Vietnam and BBC Southend.

"Uncovered by the Sunday Express"? This isn't the thalidomide scandal, you've typed 'BBC' into the search box, didn't you?

And why should it be surprising that the World Service has Twitter accounts? There's massive audiences for the network around the world; I get the snarky implication - the two Davids are hoping their readers will somehow think that licence-fee staff are poking out messages about tonight's EastEnders to Vietnam for no apparent reason. They really do underestimate their readers over at the Express, don't they?

Some accounts are duplicated – BBC Arabic has 2,244 followers while Arabic BBC has just 122.

But they're not duplicated. One is from World Service Radio, one is from the commercial World Television service. It's like seeing there's a BBC Radio 1 and a BBC One, and assuming they're the same thing.

Even if you're too dull to know that there are two distinct Arabic services, you can surely spot the content of the tweets are different, David? Or you could ask David to help you?

The two Davids worry that perhaps their readers might not even know what a Twitter is. Clearly, neither do they:

Twitter accounts, whose followers track daily tweets from other followers, are like emails between friends but shorter and open to everyone signed up to the site.

At least they got the name right, I suppose. They didn't call it Tweeter, or Twitterbook.

... whose followers track daily tweets from other followers ...

Hello, Daily Express reader. You might not understand Twitter. It's really quite simple, though - followers track daily tweets from other followers. They follow the followers. No, let me explain - these followers do a daily tweet, and they follow other followers who are following their follows... Hang on. Let's try that again:

like emails between friends but shorter and open to everyone signed up to the site

Yes, so they're like emails. Between friends. Except they're not, they're shorter than emails. And don't go between friends, they go between everyone signed up to the site. Who follow them. And... look: IT'S FAIRLY NEW AND ON THE INTERNET AND THUS IT MUST BE WRONG. And evil.

So the story is really coming together - we've got some blatant lies, some pathetic confusion, and an explanation that is neither accurate nor clear. What we'd really need now is some sort of quote from a person in a position of responsibility saying how terrible this all is. But since there's not actally an "all this" being terrible, where would you find a chump willing to honk off about it?

Hey... does anyone have a number for Tory central office?

Tory MP and former Home Office minister Ann Widdecombe said: “This seems like a very odd use of time, particularly as the people tweeting are paid by the licence payer. It is yet another example of the BBC not understanding that it is funded by the licence payer.”

Ann Widdecombe? She thinks Twitter is an "odd use of time", does she? That's hardly surprising - Widdyweb not withstanding, she does seem to approach anything invented after about 1853 as if it's somehow 'odd'. You suspect she still struggles with the idea of 'listening at a walnut cabinet to news coming out of a loudspeaker'. Why is it 'odd' to spend time connecting with your audiences? Blue Peter used to send a letter to every child who sent something in. That was time-consuming, and resource intensive, but it made sense because it was part of making sure everyone felt part of the BBC. Which is right, because we all pay for it.

Still, it's good of Ann to lecture the BBC about not understanding stuff. Although since at least three of the accounts "uncovered" by the Express aren't, erm, funded by the licence payer (World Service drawing cash from grant-in-aid and World Television a commercial operation sitting under BBC Worldwide) she might want to brush up her own understanding before knee-jerking.

While the BBC insists the accounts on Twitter are free to set up, many BBC ­correspondents are sometimes “tweeting” up to 20 times a day during work hours.

Yeah, damn the BBC with it's "oh, the accounts are free to set up", just because they're free to set up. They've got an answer for everything.

Incidentally, can anyone explain the reason why sometimes the Express uses quotes around tweet and tweeting, and sometimes not?

It's true that - perhaps - some BBC staff are sending up to 20 tweets a day - which would add up to all of forty minutes at most, but given that the Express hasn't even attempted to explain why this is a bad thing, it's a bit like complaining that some continuity announcers are making as many as four announcements in an hour.

To be fair, the Express does quote someone from the BBC:

A BBC spokesman said: “Social media websites are an effective way of engaging with our audiences.

“Twitter is a free service and BBC accounts are popular with many users.”

- which is, awkwardly, demonstrably true.

Still, having thrown down the gauntlet about how connecting with your readers, viewers and listeners is a pointless overhead, the Express does at least practice what it screeches:

Have your say is unavailable for this story

Of course it is.

Michael Jackson: Making the corpse sit up for the weekend

Obviously, it's not as inconvenient for the Sunday papers as the death of Diana, when she left the planet so late they barely had time to pull the knocking copy off their front pages, but how frustrating for the Sunday titles to have to wait two days before they get to cover the Jacko story.

The News of the World offers what it considers to be a special tribute issue, complete with some lines from a Jacko song on its masthead:

Before you judge me
Try hard to love me
Look within your heart then ask
Have you seen my childhood?

Touching. And so, in this vein, it's going to be Jackson as a man rather than as sideshow, is it, NOTW?

Erm... not quite:
Jordy Chandlor's secret diary of sex abuse; "Family members searched for money hours after his death, says nanny. Oh, and this:

TORMENTED Michael Jackson wrote a chilling horror story about a CHILD ABUSER and SERIAL KILLER starring HIS OWN KIDS.

The sickening tale - called Kids on Swings - is a nightmare vision of Prince Michael II and Jacko's daughter Paris falling into the clutches of a fiend who slaughters children with a 'sling blade'.

That's quite a tribute issue you've got there, Mr Murdoch. Clearly exactly what he would have wanted.

The Sunday People seems to have a problem understanding how people react to grief:

Less than 24 hours after Michael Jackson died, his father Joe LAUGHED and JOKED for the cameras.

Joe, 79, shocked onlookers as he clowned around outside the family home in Los Angeles.

They said he looked "almost ecstatic" and "totally relaxed" as he trotted down the drive to chat to family friend the Rev Jesse Jackson who was giving TV interviews outside the house.

One fan said: "Millions are mourning around the world and he's laughing his head off. It's absolutely sickening."

No it isn't. People laugh at funerals. People react to loss in different ways. Are the papers so desperate to try and cram this story into a Princess Of Diana framework that the People are preparing a "Show us you care, Ma'amPops" storyline?

And perhaps - just perhaps - you might feel relief that someone whose life has been a total misery isn't twisting and turning any more?

I'm sure the Sunday Mirror has got something about Jackson in its pages, but I've been waiting for it to load in for ten minutes and still haven't got past a blank page. Sly Bailey will probably blame that on Google, somehow, too.

If you're looking for an unlikely-sounding story, the best place to turn is the Sunday Express (whoever would have thought the Express would outlive Jacko?):

FANS have called for Michael Jackson’s O2 arena shows to be replaced with tribute concerts.

Hundreds of the 750,000 ticket holders have flooded organiser AEG Live with emails and calls for commemoration events in place of next month’s sold-out 50-date This Is It tour.

Fan Jahan As said on Facebook yesterday: “I really hope all the other artists come together for such an amazing show and help Michael finish his journey and send him off the way he would’ve wanted to be remembered.

“I also believe the fans who were meant to attend his concerts will finally say their goodbyes.”

Yes. It's not going to happen. Fifty nights of tributes?

True to form, the Mail On Sunday realises that this news story - like all news story - is really about the prices of property:

Family and friends believe he was acutely aware that, once ensconced in Foxbury Manor, he would have had no option but to submit himself to the gruelling series of 50 concerts.

The property’s owner, businessman Osman Ertosun, and his wife and two children moved out of £15million manor in Chislehurst, Kent, more than a week ago and were preparing to stay elsewhere for a year.

The Grade II-listed mansion is among the largest private properties in Greater London. Jackson paid about £1million to rent it until next February. His concert venue, the O2 Arena, is just ten miles away.

He doesn't even get it right when he's talking about himself

From Media Monkey:

Writing in his column for the Sunday Express, Boy George takes the opportunity to "shamelessly plug" (as he puts it) his new radio show on "GLR". Not only does GLR no longer exist, but the station that replaced it, BBC London Live, is probably the biggest rival of the station he really works for - LBC. Here's hoping he has a good relationship with station owners Chrysalis.

Mind you, the Guardian's media column should be a bit kinder - after all, London Live was replaced by BBC London almost a year ago; and what paper has led to the internet suggesting that Jerry Hall has made up a defence of Pete Townshend because it misplaced their conversation about kiddie porn online from 2001 to 1991?