To the list of political reporters/editorial teams perpetuating misconceptions about the 2008 online campaign, add Jim Hopkins/USA Today for not recognizing McCainSpace as the social network it is not.
The caption is not incorrect: John McCain indeed “urges supporters to create their own pages on his on McCainSpace online community.” But the caption does lead one to believe that there is an “online community” at John McCain’s website, yet even a cursory inspection leads to the conclusion that this belief is unfounded.
The text of Hopkins’ “The 2008 candidates are running ‘e-lection’ campaigns” story makes no mention of the incompetently executed/purposefully deceptive asocial network the McCain campaign continues to foist on its website visitors, which, coincident with that unsufferable headline, leads me to believe the blame in fact lies with USA Today’s editors and not necessarily Hopkins himself.
That said, his name is on the story, and others may not appreciate the division of newsroom labor. So the next time Mr. Hopkins writes about the “e-lection,” I hope he looks a little closer, then makes an effort to edit his editors.
1 Response to “McCain Spaced”