Shitstorms
Things seem slow right now, with speculation and all. Inductive reasoning leads me to believe the next big Ford break is just around the corner...
We’re at a SHITSTORMS* score of 4 right now – if it reaches 5 days watch out…
Reporters like to tweet for a variety of reasons. It creates engagement with the readers, provides an instant feedback loop on stories that are breaking and additional context on published reports. The frequency of tweets will vary based on what’s breaking/in market, and also depending on how busy the tweeter is. One assumes that a reporter who is working on a story or on deadline won’t have a lot of free time to muck around with social media.
So, let’s look at one of the central reporters on the City Hall beat. Daniel Dale and Don Peat tweet every time they take a piss so there’s a bit too much noise in their feeds. However, Robyn Doolittle has just enough activity so that her twitter breaks stand out.
From Jan 1 to Jun 23rd Robyn has publicly posted 894 tweets, or about 5.1 per day. However, they are lumpy – a third of her days have no tweets, and another half are 7-tweet days or less. As one would expect, her days of highest activity are generally during Ford’s court dates, council meetings and just after major stories break.
Sometimes she takes a few days off in a row. In 2013 she’s gone on twitter breaks of three days or more only seven times:
Jan 4-6: Ford’s COI appeal landed on the 7th
Feb 10-12 and Feb 15-18: She was on vacation
Mar 21-25: Garrison Ball story broke on the 26th (5 day streak!)
Apr 7-9: Looks random
Jun 8-12: Project Traveler broke on the 13th (5 day streak!)
Jun 21-23 (and counting): ?
In other words, the only things that have kept her off Twitter for extended periods in the last six months are a vacation and preparing to break major Rob Ford stories. Today marks four days of silence – anyone know if she’s at the cottage or in her office?
*
See How I Taper Sending Tweets on Really Massive Stories