Inside Pages

Call it Twitter-tics.

It’s the neural speed at which political imbroglios go viral or get escalated in 140-character bursts. This recent article on Ad Week’s website notes how quickly Mitt Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom mounted a Twitter offensive against Hilary Rosen after the Democratic strategist’s incendiary remarks on CNN last month about Romney’s wife Ann never having worked “a day in her life.”

Most of you use Facebook.

Shocking, I know.

But perhaps you’d be genuinely surprised to know 44 percent of you use Pinterest, Hulu is building a following and no one seems to have much use for Reddit, Digg or Delicious.

At least, that’s the case according to my super-unscientific survey taken by — wait for it, wait for it — a whopping 33 people. (Geeze, folks, how difficult is it to click on a box?) That, of course, makes any conclusions drawn from the results incredibly specious.

Which, of course, won’t stop me from drawing them, anyway.

Here's an interesting story about Charleston-area media, specifically, the online efforts of traditional news outlets like the daily newspaper, The (Charleston) Post and Courier; a local ABC television affiliate, WCIV; and an alternative publication

Those of you who read the regular updates about the RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing on our "microsite" might have noticed we used social-media aggregator Storify to pull together links, tweets, Facebook posts, YouTube videos and other online content -- and, of course, our own reporting -- to keep you in the know about Hilton Head Island's annual PGA Tour event.

I recently wrote of the perils that can befall a news-gathering operation that willingly injects itself into a story. But sometimes, journalists can become part of a story unwittingly.

CNN correspondent Susan Candiotti has stoked a controversy by using foul language in reporting the recent shootings of five black men in Tulsa, Okla. (I found it interesting that this story on Yahoo News focused its lede on "a racial slur" but didn't make immediate mention of what seems to me a bigger taboo -- a f-bomb.)

Most of the duties that came with my former job as sports editor of The Island Packet seem distant to me after four-plus years as news editor. But it still feels odd watching the final round of the Masters without writing about it, and Bubba Watson's stirring victory Sunday really made me long for the old days.

Somewhat apropos of my blog entry yesterday about news-gatherers abandoning their stations as detached observers comes news today that a Palestinian envoy presented some sort of award of appreciation to former Hearst and UPI White House correspondent Helen Thomas at dinner Sunday.

There's a saying in this business that you shouldn't let facts stand in the way of a good story, and some outlets seem determined these days not to let it stand in the way of a good protest, either.