I’m always amazed when I see entities out there trying to “leverage” the Internet, but who very obviously and very simply just don’t get the Internet. Today’s example comes from my inbox this morning in the form of a political newsletter from my local US House Rep, John Carter ®. The newsletter prominently contains the text of this release from 2/26/2010, demanding that Charlie Rangel step down as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
One small problem: Not only has Rangel already stepped down, he did so more than a week ago and Carter even released an article on the subject. The only reason for choosing the former article over the latter is to scandalize the base.
It also shows that Carter is completely out of touch with the pace of information on the Internet. News is old at 24 hours, common knowledge at 48, and ancient history at a week. Pushing a three week old, obsolete release in Print is understandable; there’s deadlines and print leads to take into account. In email communications, you can entirely change the content up until the very second you hit “send.” If Rangel had stepped down half an hour before the newsletter, it could have been addressed. That he’d stepped down nine days prior and they still ran a story from weeks before demanding his resignation is just completely out of touch.
