Every form of media has a noun used to describe the people it claims to reach. Radio has “listeners,” newspaper has “readers,” television has “viewers,” and so forth. New media follows the same linguistic rules. On Facebook, you have “fans” and on Twitter you have “followers.”

Given the linguistic similarities, it’s easy to assume that having a follower on your Twitter account is the equivalent of having a viewer of your television station, and that a page with 100,000 fans has the same power to reach people as a radio station with a cume (cumulative audience) of 100,000 people. In short, it’s easy to assume that:

television : viewer :: Twitter : follower
radio : listener :: Facebook : fan

Upon closer scrutiny, however, these analogies fail to hold up.

Let me preface this by saying that the ratings systems for television (Nielsen) and radio (Arbitron) are horribly flawed measurement tools that, at best, only give you an estimate of the actual ratings and, at worst, fluctuate wildly because the methodology is deeply susceptible to error. For the purposes of this blog post, I’m going to put that issue aside for the moment.

When a person is labeled a “viewer” of a television show, it is because they have actually watched the show; the same is true of radio “listeners.” These ratings systems are after-the-fact measures of past events. In the case of television, a box on your television set records what you watched; in radio, a Portable People Meter records the signature frequencies of the stations you hear.

The same cannot be said of Facebook fans or Twitter followers. A fan (or a follower) is not defined as a person who has actually read your posts, simply as someone who is able to receive your posts. It’s the television equivalent of ordering HBO – just because you get the channel doesn’t mean you actually sit down to watch True Blood every week. (I use HBO as an example because the channel can be ordered individually.  The analogy doesn’t hold up as well for basic cable bundles, because you have no idea whether a person ordered the package due to interest in Spike-TV, Lifetime or another channel.  Facebook and Twitter do not have comparable bundles.)  The closest radio analogy would be saving a station as a preset button: it’s now easier to receive the station, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you listened to it.

The analogy becomes even less accurate when you consider that radio ratings track individuals, while television ratings track households.  You must be an individual with a profile to become a fan of a Facebook page (some companies have profiles, but Facebook frowns upon this and sometimes disables such accounts).  Twitter, on the other hand, makes no distinction between account holders who are individuals and those who are organizations (companies, bands, groups, etc.).  A person could easily have multiple Twitter accounts for the different roles they play in their life, but he or she unlikely that they have more than one Facebook profile.  In this regard, Facebook is the most similar to radio.  I would also argue that a Facebook fan is also more valuable than a Twitter follower because you know a fan is an individual, whereas a follower may not be, and several followers could in reality all be the same individual.

Print offers a closer analogy, if only because the industry has its own misleading terminology. The words “readers” and “subscribers” are often used interchangeably, even though they are not the same thing. Just because the paper arrives at my doorstep every day does not mean that I actually open it up and read it. Back when I used to subscribe to the daily paper, it would often pile up, untouched, when I was too busy to find the time. Of course, there are also “readers” who are not “subscribers” – people who buy the paper on the street or pick up a used copy on the subway seat or in a waiting room. Conveniently, the publishing industry uses statistics which account for readers who are not subscribers, but not subscribers who don’t actually read, thus artificially inflating the number of people they claim to reach.

Having a follower or a fan is like having a print subscriber – somebody who can receive your messages, but may not actually choose to pay attention on any given day. Like Twitter and Facebook, newspapers and magazines cannot measure how many people actually digested their message after the fact. In short, these analogies hold up:

newspaper : subscriber :: Twitter : follower
magazine : subscriber :: Facebook : fan

while these analogies do not:

newspaper : subscriber :: newspaper : reader
magazine : reader :: Twitter : follower
newspaper : reader :: Facebook : fan

The subscriber analogy holds further with regard to Twitter, because neither the print industry or Twitter draw a distinction between subscribers who are individuals and subscribers who are organizations.  I may receive the paper at home, my workplace may have a subscription, or both.  Likewise, I may have a Twitter account for personal use, professional use or both.  In both cases, one person may account for multiple subscriptions, inflating the gap between “subscribers” and actual “readers.”

Finally, traditional media like television, radio and print is one-way while social media like Facebook and Twitter is two-way.  Normally, I crow about the big advantage that this fact represents for social media because it allows companies to engage in actual conversation with customers.  However, it can also add to the gap between “subscribers” and “readers.”  Why?  Just because social media can be used to send and receive messages doesn’t mean that people actually do use it for both.  In fact, there are a significant number of people on social media sites who have no interest in receiving your message, they are simply interested in blasting their own out.  They’re called spammers, and we spit on them at parties, but they do exist.  Just because somebody follows you, it does not necessarily mean that they are interested in hearing what you have to say.  By contrast, we know that print subscribers have at least some interest in hearing the message offered by the medium, because they pay for it and they can’t use it talk.

To make a long story short, don’t assume that having 100,000 fans or followers is the same as having 100,000 viewers or listeners.  One measures (or at least attempts to measure) the number of people who have actually received a message, while the other measures people who are capable of receiving a message.  They ain’t the same thing.

A very thought-provoking post by Social Media Explorer prompted an interesting discussion yesterday about social media and public relations agencies.  An executive from Chicago sought me out to ask, “When I submit social media RFPs to PR agencies, how can I tell if they actually know what they’re doing?”  As Facebook reaches new heights and Twitter continues to see explosive growth, reputable PR agencies are increasingly stepping into the social media game.  Of course, there are no college degrees offered in social media, there are no certification programs, and the field is evolving at such a rapid rate that it’s very hard for anybody to keep up with it all, let alone be able to competently test other people on their social media skills. In the last month, employees of at least two different PR agencies candidly admitted to me that their social media capabilities were not what they needed to be.  At the same time, you have thousands of people claiming to be “social media experts.”  (DISCLAIMER: I, too,  am a self-proclaimed “social media expert.”) So what you’re left with is a lot of reputable PR agencies with track records – that are not in social media – and a lot of free-floating social media experts with knowledge but no track record.  How do we separate the wheat from the chaff?

This suggested list of questions is intended for two audiences: 1) Companies looking to assess the true social media capabilities of PR agencies and (2) PR agencies interviewing social media experts to add to their staffs.

1) Do they understand the fundamental concepts of social media and why it is different than traditional media? Jim Tobin had an excellent comment on the blog post I cited earlier: “Too many folks treat social media as a condiment (to quote Lisa Braziel). They get done with their campaign, and then they think, ‘How can we add some social to this?’”  At its core, social media is fundamentally different than television, print, radio, billboards and all other forms of traditional media.  Traditional media is a one-way conversation. The advertsier talks to the audience, but they can’t talk back in any meaningful way.  Social media, on the other hand, involves two-way engagements.  It is about building relationships with your clients over social networks through mutual conversations.

In traditional media, “frequency” is a frequently used term.  To reach people, you must repeat your message over and over.  With social media, frequency is annoying. There’s a word for people who repeatedly blast out the same message: Spammers.  Spammers are people who engage in one-way conversations.

If I were tasked with assessing a PR agency’s social media capabilities, I would ask an open-ended question (”Tell me why I should be doing social media…”) and look for an answer that explains why social media is fundamentally different from traditional media.  If you get a sense that the agency views social media as just another channel for dispensing your message – another “condiment” – move on.

2) How can they enable you to listen to your customers? Social media is about engaging in conversations, and all good conversations involve at least as much listening as they do talking.  Your customers are talking to each other using social media right now.  Any good social media campaign will allow you to listen to what your customers are saying about your product, your industry and your competitors.  Make sure your PR agency has a plan for allowing you to listen to what they are saying.

3) Where are they devoting their social media resources? Social media is not expensive.  Most of the tools are available for free or next to nothing on the web.  However, social media is very time intensive.  Why? Because you are engaging with customers on a human level.  It takes time to talk to people and build relationships with them.  A state of the art social media department isn’t spending a lot of money on fancy equipment, it’s spending money on smart staffers.  Avoid social media agencies with one social media expert.  Instead, look for agencies with lots of dedicated social media staffers.  An agency that takes social media seriously has a big staff, not a big budget.

4) Years of experience may not matter. Let’s face it, social media hasn’t been around that long.  Twitter didn’t hit the mainstream until two years ago at South by Southwest, and Facebook has only made fan pages truly useful for businesses in the past year.  MySpace has lagged behind Facebook in terms of ad capabilities.  So when somebody tells you that they have been doing social media for ten years, take it with a grain of salt.  Ten years ago, Friendster hadn’t been launched and “online marketing” meant mass e-mailing.  Social media competence is more about keeping up with trends than having a long track record.

5) But don’t fall for the latest fad either. Remember, newer doesn’t mean better.  Twitter is the hot new thing getting all the media attention right now, but it has an estimated 18 million users.  Facebook just passed 300 million.  Don’t assume that Twitter is the right tool for your company just because Katie Couric tweets.  Your grandmother doesn’t, and chances are your mother doesn’t either.  New is not always better, and the thing getting the most media attention is not necessarily the most mainstream.

6) Ask about their core competencies. There are a ton of social media tools out there, from blog-building tools to social networks to micro-blogging services to social bookmarking sites.  Frankly, it’s impossible for most PR agencies to be great at all of them.  Ask them in which services they excel and in which they don’t.  In my case, I specialize in Facebook and Twitter.  I am familiar with Digg, but if you want a Digg power-user, I’m probably not the right person.  By the same token, it’s probably not reasonable for you to expect a PR agency to have an expert in every single tool on their staff.  A good PR agency will know how to pull in a Digg power-user when they need one, but they may not be retaining that person as a full-time employee.

7) Make them explain which social media tool is right for your company. As I said, there are a ton of social media tools and different ones are better suited to different companies.  Don’t assume that you should be using the same social media outlets as other companies.  For example, I had a manufacturer of adult diapers attend one of my seminars recently.  There may be a social media tool that works for this company, but I doubt you’ll see a lot of fans flocking to the Incontinence Incorporated Facebook Page.  Which tools will be most effective for your company?  Viral videos, blog outreach, or Twitter contests?  A good PR agency will be able to explain to you exactly why they are choosing the tools they are using for your campaign.

8) Don’t get overwhelmed by abstract ideas or fancy terminology. The social media realm is full of theorists who ponder the radical ways in which online developments will change the world.  This is great if you’re a professor or author, but make your PR agency explain to you exactly what they intend to do in very practical, concrete terms.  And make them do it in plain English.  Do not allow yourself to be intimidated words you do not understand.  If you don’t understand something, ask. It’s your money, so you are entitled to an answer.  When I explain the significance of Twitter to people, I am more likely to use the words “Kanye West” and “Jay Leno” than “retweet” and “url shortener.”  One of my favorite social media experts is Chris Penn precisely because when he speaks, he does it in a very clear, unassuming manner.  He is not condescending to people who are unfamiliar with concepts or lingo.  At its core, social media is not rocket science.  If your PR agency reps makes you feel more confused after talking to them, leave them behind.

9) Results matter…sort of. A lot of people get excited about the internet because its much easier to track actions of your clients than with traditional media.  So ROI gets a lot of attention.  But social networking is a lot like networking in the real world.  What you get out of it is roughly, but not exactly, proportional to what you put into it.  The conversation you have today may not lead to a sale, but maybe that person will talk to another who will talk to another who will buy.  You have more insight into the results your efforts are producing, but you will never have a perfectly clear picture.  In that regard, social media is different than the other form of online marketing, Search Engine Optimization (the art of getting your webpage to rank really high in Google searches), which is easier to translate into graphs and spreadsheets.  At its core, social media is social – it depends on human interactions, and we can be wildly unpredictable creatures.  You can ask your PR agency about their track record, but as I mentioned before, most social media simply hasn’t been around that long.  Personally, I would place more weight on testimony from satisfied customers than I would on case studies.

Did I miss anything?  What would you ask a PR agency if you were trying to assess their social media capabilities?  What if you were a PR agency looking to hire a social media expert?

I wrote this article which appeared in The Sands Report, a weekly email for alternative rock radio professionals:

Using Twitter to Connect With Your Audience

Alan Burns & Associates recently conducted a study in which they found that most music radio stations don’t use their airtime to talk about the things that are on listeners’ minds.   Rather, “radio stations dominantly talk to their audiences about the radio station.”  The study went on to find:

The typical music radio station in the U.S. has 14 breaks an hour (think of it as 12 songs, 2 stopsets, and a transition into each as a “break”).  The results of our analysis indicate that:

• 10 of those will contain station positioning language, either live or recorded.
• 7 of them will contain contest, promotional, sales merchandising, website and/or text program information.
• ONE of them, on average, will contain something said/designed solely because a listener might be interested in it, having nothing to do with the station.

However, that’s an average. On 8 of the 20 stations we monitored, there were NO statements targeted solely to the listener’s interests or needs.

And on a typical music station, a song (or multiple songs) are identified 4 times an hour. Other than that, on average there are NO comments about music.

You can read more about the study here.

In short, radio is talking to its audience about things that the audience doesn’t care about.  When radio fails to engage listeners by talking about the things that are on their minds, it encourages them to turn to other outlets.

Once upon a time, air talent had to guess what people were going to be talking about around the water cooler each day.  Morning shows would stay up late to watch Leno and Letterman in case something interesting happened.  Jocks would subscribe to all the major magazines in search of topical content.  Google made this job somewhat easier; now jocks could look up content quicker, but they were still guessing whether or not they were researching the right content.

Enter Twitter. With its endless stream of tweets cataloguing the mundane tasks of total strangers (“I’m eating Wheaties for breakfast.”), it’s tempting to dismiss Twitter as just the latest fad in a long line of social media sites that stretch back to Friendster. But Twitter is fundamentally altering the way we communicate in a way that cannot be easily dismissed.

Most of us now use Google several times a day.  Web search engines revolutionized the world by allowing us to search through millions of online documents in an instant. The key word in that last sentence is “documents.”  Searching Google is like being able to walk into a library and search through every book and magazine article in the building instantly.  But all of these documents, like all webpages, have been thoughtfully prepared.  They are not spontaneous bits of communications.

Like Google, Twitter also has a search feature.  But when you search Twitter, you’re not searching through documents.  You’re searching through conversations.  Real-time, off-the-cuff conversations.  It’s as if each of us spoke in cartoon word bubbles that could be sorted and searched according to the words they contain.  As a result, we no longer need to guess at what people are talking about around the watercooler.  We know – because Twitter tells us.

Twitter itself will give you a list of “Trending Topics” on the right side of the page.  For a better visual representation, check out www.TwitScoop.com, which arranges hot topics into a tag cloud (in a tag cloud, the size of a word on the screen is proportional to number of times it is being used).  In some cases, it’s not surprising to see what is popular in Twitter conversations.  Last week, Kanye West and Jay Leno were trending high on Twitter.

Twitter takes much of the guesswork out of figuring out what content is most relevant to your audience.  As time goes on, programmers will build Twitter tools that allow you to break down hot topics by age, gender, location and other demographic factors.  Twitter is a fantastic tool for jocks (especially morning shows) and programmers alike.  Use it to make sure that you are talking to your audience about the same things that they are talking to each other about.  Use Twitter to reconnect with your audience.å

Seth Resler is the President of New England Social Media, a company that helps clients – include radio stations and air talent – manage their social media presence.  He is the former Program Director of 95.5 WBRU in Providence. Reach him at Seth@NewEnglandSocialMedia.com.

I have become a big proponent of Facebook for businesses – especially small businesses – over the course of the last year as the social networking site has continually improved the features of their Facebook Pages.  For the uninitiated, Facebook offers Facebook pages for companies and organizations, which essentially do all the same things that Facebook profiles do for people.  Originally, these pages were very restrictive, causing a lot of companies (mine included) to cheat and create a Profile, even though these are strictly for individuals.

However, Facebook has expanded the functionality of its Pages immensely, making it a far better business tool.  Among the recent additions:

1) Page Status Updates now appear in the Newsfeeds of its fans.  When people log onto their Facebook homepage, they see a big long list of status updates from all of their friends – and all of the pages of which they are fans.  This makes it easier than ever to keep customers informed about your company.

2) Pages appear in the Suggestions box.  The Suggestions box is a great tool for finding people you know (and perhaps forgot you knew) on Facebook.  Exactly how Facebook does this is a secret they don’t share, but it is based on the friends of your friends (and perhaps your imported contact lists)  A few months ago, the Suggestions box started including Pages that you may want to become a fan of as well.  So if a lot of your friends are fans of a particular page, Facebook will recommend that you consider becoming a fan as well.

3) In addition to incorporating Facebook Pages into the Suggestions box, they also appear in the Highlights column in the lower right section of the Home page.  The algorithm for determining what appears in this section is based on popularity, so the more your friends interact with a particular Facebook posting (whether its a Page, an Event, a video, etc.), the more it will appear in this section.

4) For a while now, you’ve been able to pay to advertise links with Facebook Ads.  These could be links to an external site or a link to something on Facebook itself, such as a Page, a Group or an Event.  It was only recently, however, that the “Become a Fan” button was added to ads for Facebook Pages.  This simple button makes it incredibly easy for a person to opt in to receiving messages from a company with a single click.

Facebook has made other changes, too, but these are my favorites.  In light of these changes, I would like to offer a comparison between Feacbook Pages and Email Newsletters, especially in light of a recent survey showing that these are the top two tools marketers intend to spend their money on in 2010.  While I think both are an important part of a marketing mix, I think Facebook Pages have some nice advantages:

1) Facebook Pages make it much easier for fans to opt in (or out) than Email Newsletter.  The beauty of email newsletters over traditional media like television and print is that once a person was captured in your database, you could get back in touch with them at any point for minimal cost.  Of course, capturing them in your database was a relatively long process, with people needing to opt in or even double-opt in to insure that you weren’t filling their inboxes with spam.  So it took a complicated chain of clicks and keystrokes as people typed in their email address (twice!) and gave permission.  With Facebook, on the other hand, it only takes a single click to become  a fan – and you are able to connect with people over and over again.

2) Facebook Pages allow you to be more timely.  With Facebook pages, you can be timely without being spammy.  For example, I used to run a radio station, where we relied heavily on our email newsletters.  I couldn’t send out an email every time I was about to give away a pair of concert tickets or I would have angered a lot of listeners.  On the other hand, it would be acceptable to post messages on Facebook ten minutes before every giveaway.  Because Facebook status updates appear and are pushed down as time moves on, they are better suited to quick, timely updates than email.  The same is true of Twitter.

3) Facebook status updates don’t need to be opened.  They simply appear, waiting to be read.  It’s as easy to read a status update as it is to read the subject of an email.  Of course, this means that shorter, simpler content is better suited to Facebook while longer, more in-depth pieces are best kept for email.  Generally speaking, you can also get better analytics through email email newsletter programs like Constant Contact (allowing you to see who opened the email and which links they clicked) than you can with Facebook.

I do not advocate abandoning email marketing, but I think in light of recent changes to Facebook Pages, it would be good to examine your email marketing strategy.  First, I would look at the frequency of your company’s email newsletters.  Does it make sense to reduce the number of newsletters you send out and send out topical Facebook status updates with greater frequency?  Second, I would examine which content belongs in which format.  Email newsletters are better suited to longer content that doesn’t become irrelevant with the passing of a few hours or days.  Facebook updates, on the other hand, are better suited to short topical bursts.  To put it in traditional media terms, think of Email Newsletters as a magazine and Facebook as your daily newspaper.

As a general rule, I don’t recommend a lot of social media reading because a lot of it is so theoretical and while understanding the abstract concepts behind social media is important, a lot of us are too busy running our businesses.  However, I have found past editions of Inside Facebook’s Facebook Bible to be very useful – despite the hefty price tag – because it walks you through specific features of the social networking site in a thorough and practical manner.  The new edition has just been released.  You can learn more about it here:

The Facebook Marketing Bible – October 2009 Edition is Now Available.

Recently I came across a blog comment complaining that Facebook pages were only effective for companies that were already well-known, and that Facebook did not allow small businesses access to people who did not know them. The author suggested that Facebook give small businesses the opportunity to solicit strangers.

In my opinion, this represents a fundamental misconception about social media sites like Facebook. Facebook is a tool that facilitates relationships; however, it it not a substitute for relationships.  If you don’t have a relationship with a customer prior to Facebook, you cannot expect Facebook to build one for you.  Note that Facebook allows you to connect with people that you already know; its primary purpose is not to introduce you to new people.  (The same is true of LinkedIn and other networks.)  In this regard, the big, well-known companies do have an advantage, but it is not an advantage that stems from Facebook; the advantage comes from the fact that the big company has put more time and resources into building relationships with its customers, so more customers want to connect with that company.  Facebook can help level the playing field for small companies by decreasing the cost of reconnecting with customers, but it cannot wipe out all of the relationships the large companies have created – and it is unreasonable to expect it to do so.

One might object that while Facebook and LinkedIn require a reciprocal relationship (every connection must be approved by both parties), the same is not true of Twitter, which allows you to follow or be followed without returning the favor in kind.  To that extent, relationships can be built without prior contact over Twitter in a way that is prohibitive on Facebook.  I would argue that these relationships lack the strength of relationships stemming from contact in the physical world, and the fact that so many are one-sided is evidence of this.  Moreover, on Twitter, these relationship still have to be developed by investing time and energy.  Twitter does not allow you to select a set of demographic criteria and then start blasting your message out.

The short of it is that while online social networks can make it easier to connect with customers, this does not relieve companies of the responsibility to build mutual offline relationships with their customers.

The social networking site Twitter is clamping down on fake celebrity accounts after being sued in America.

Thousands of famous names have fallen victim to impostors, including Britney Spears, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, the Dalai Lama and even the Queen.

This summer, Mr Miliband was forced to deny quotes widely attributed to him after the death of Michael Jackson. The comments had been written on a seemingly plausible Twitter account under his name.

Enlarge Graphic

Twitter has decided to act after Tony La Russa, the coach of an obscure American baseball team, launched a legal action over a fake account. He claimed that postings in which he appeared to make light of the death of two of his players had been ‘hurtful’.

Twitter, which has six million users who can send instant blogs on their activities to anyone who chooses to follow them, denies it has any legal case to answer.

But it is now testing a new system to ensure that users can identify genuine celebrity accounts. In future, a tick alongside a name will guarantee it is genuine.

Until recently, Twitter has had a liberal attitude towards celebrity impostors as long as it was clear that the postings were not genuine.

via Trick or Tweet? Twitter launches crackdown after millions are duped by fake accounts | Mail Online.

In a fascinating survey, it looks like social media is finally getting the resect it deserves from marketers, over half of whom plan to use it in their marketing mix for 2010:

While email remained the most popular media among marketers for use next year 56.8% “realistically” plan to use it, social media isn’t far behind. Over half 56.3% “realistically” plan to include it in future marketing plans, found the Center for Media Research.

“We expect that the data and insights in the study can assist agencies and other media planners and buyers to make the case for particular media spending next year,” said Chuck Martin, Director of the Center for Media Research.

What is not clear from the report, however, is the level of spend the survey respondents intended to allocate to social media. Many companies are aware that they need to be in the social space but are still testing the water and large spends are unlikely until social media becomes a proven and accountable medium.The resulting list of popular media for 2010 is as follows:

• Email, with 56.8% realistically planning to use it
• Social networks 56.3%
• Keyword search 49.7%
• Radio 42.2%
• Magazines 42.1%
• Online display 40.5%
• Event sponsorship 36.9%
• Rich media display 35.5%
• Direct mail 34.7%
• Regional TV 32.8%
• Regional newspapers 31.7%
• Out-of-home 31.2%
• Email sponsorship 29.5%
• Online video 26.7%
• Mobile SMS text 26.1%
• National TV 18.2%
• National newspapers 14.8%

via Social media on marketers’ menu for 2010 – Trends & Ideas – BizReport.

I worked in radio for a dozen years, and one thing I never understood was why the broadcasting industry never put more pressure on Apple to include an FM tuner in iPods.  To me, this was a glaring omission and one that would (and has) done huge damage to the industry.  That’s about to change:

Apple’s launch this week of its fifth-generation iPod nano, the first iPod to include a video camera, drew heavy chatter from bloggers and tech nerds alike for its affordable attack on the Flip camera. But the unlikeliest benefactor of the new nano? The radio industry, via Apple’s first FM tuner, compatible with new 5G nanos.

The radio tuner will allow users to tag songs they hear on the radio, sync them with their iTunes and identify the song’s artist and title and purchase it, where applicable, from the iTunes store via the Radio Advertising Bureau’s “Buy From FM” platform. Additionally, the FM tuner also enables DVR-like, on-demand functionality to live radio, allowing listeners to pause a song from a live radio feed, rewind it or resume listening after switching to another station.

via Media Advertising: Radio Embraces IPod Nano FM Tuner – Advertising Age – MediaWorks.

Of course, the tuner makes it easier to download songs and line Apple’s pockets.  So as radio continues to turn away from compelling, original content in favor of an it’s-all-about-the-music philosophy (with Program Directors increasingly telling their air talent to keep their mouths shut and General Managers increasingly automating airshifts), one wonders if radio has been reduced to nothing more than a long commercial for iTunes.

ABC News reporter Terry Moran caused quite a commotion tonight on Twitter after writing the following: “Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a “jackass” for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT’S presidential.”

Although it wasn’t long before Moran removed it, with over a million followers, the tweet quickly bounced around Twitter through various users. (And it can still be found here).

Now, an ABC spokesperson explains to POLITICO what happened:

In the process of reporting on remarks by President Obama that were made during a CNBC interview, ABC News employees prematurely tweeted a portion of those remarks that turned out to be from an off-the-record portion of the interview. This was done before our editorial process had been completed. That was wrong. We apologize to the White House and CNBC and are taking steps to ensure that it will not happen again.

via ABC’s Moran removes tweet with Obama swipe at Kanye – Michael Calderone – POLITICO.com.

This entire affair makes you wonder if there’s such a thing as being “off the record” in a post-Twitter world.  Traditional journalists – the kind that are increasingly endangered by the rise of new mediums like Twitter – pride themselves on having a certain journalistic integrity.  They’ll tell you that Twitter is no substitute for the rigorous standards handed down to them by Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow.  But what happens when those same journalists use Twitter to circumvent their own principles?

Surely Moran understood that it would be inappropriate for him to air an “off-the-record” comment on his television network.  Does he believe that when he publishes the same comment on Twitter it doesn’t violate the reporters’ creed?  Does he believe that ABC carries some sort of legitimacy that Twitter lacks, and therefore is subject to more stringent standards?  Is Twitter just amplified gossip, while television – with the likes of Glenn Beck, Rachel Maddow, Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann – is somehow superior by definition?

When reporters use new technology to violate their own code of conduct, they undermine the justification of their own existence.

Looking at the issue from Obama’s point of view, it’s equally frightening.  We have a longstanding principle that celebrities in our culture have to put up with a certain amount of spotlight by definition.  But is Twitter going to raise this to a whole other level?  Surely, Kanye understood that he was publicly acting like a “jackass,” but are Presidents no longer allowed to air their feelings in private for fear that they might be overheard and repeated to the entire world?  What kind of effect will this crippling celebrity status have on our leaders?

Is there such a thing as “Off the Record” anymore?