Today's conundrum
A letter to the editor:
I am a faithful reader of the online version of your publication every day. I receive the "News & Record Update" via e-mail each day and enjoy feeling the most up-to-date in the fast-paced world of "right this minute" online news.
However, I was very disappointed when I opened my e-mail yesterday and saw a headline under sports that announced Shawn Johnson as the gold medalist in the balance beam, when the event would not air for the first time on television until later that night. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I have enjoyed being able to watch the Olympics with anticipation of what will happen despite the 12-hour time difference. I was extremely disappointed to have the result "spoiled" for me. Can we not act as though the event hasn't happened until it airs on television?
I don't think it was written by an NBC executive, but I suppose it's possible.
I suppose we could have posted a spoiler alert on the e-mail, but who would have thought of that, given that the e-mail news alert is designed to bring you the news?
Comments (2)
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The AP newsletter headlines including this one are copied from headlines that appear under the national and world news section on the home page of news-record.com. I just checked with Michael Grossman (our director of New Media), and we hadn't heard of similar complaints regarding it appearing on the home page throughout the day. That's an automatically generated AP feed the News & Record and countless other newspaper and television Web sites subscribe to. So it's not merely a question of putting a spoiler alert on the newsletter, but putting one on news-record.com. But as John indicated that kind of defeats the point of the newsletter. And it defeats the point of a newspaper Web site. And it wouldn't be practical. We automatically get AP headline feeds 24/7 that appear on the home page. And that includes Olympics-related coverage updates at all times of the day.
Posted on August 21, 2008 8:41 AM
What ticks me off is how NBC delays showing popular events until late in its evening broadcast, even though they took place many hours earlier. I want to know the results so I can decide whether it's worth staying up to see.
Posted on August 21, 2008 8:51 AM