Sep 10th
If you watched President Obama’s address to Congress last night, or have been following the news today, you probably know that Republican lawmaker Joe Wilson screwed up. Badly. Fueled by a disagreement with a statement Obama made on Health Care Reform and illegal immigrants, Wilson shouted, “You lie!” directly at the President. His statement was heard by the entire crowd, and by a national audience tuning in on broadcast media. Obama, being known to be bluntly direct in his own communication, promptly responded, “No, I don’t”. The short silence was deafening.
Ouch.
But how bad is ouch? What are the consequences of screwing up in the public forum, when we live in an age of new media communication where everyone is a potential publisher?
First, the Associated Press reported that Wilson’s official site received so much traffic that it crashed. It’s still down, as of writing this post.
Congressman Wilson is also on Twitter (in reality, it appears that someone from his staff tweets for him). His profile was, and continues to be, bombarded by comments deploring the outburst. A Twitter Search for “Joe Wilson” brings back 1,445 results as of 1:03 this afternoon.
Interestingly, the page updates every minute, increasing by 30-50 indexed results each time. What does that mean? Simply, it means that the conversation is still going. Hordes of people are still talking about Joe Wilson and the incident on Twitter. Good, bad or ugly.
A Technorati search for “Joe Wilson” brings back 5,026 indexed results as of 1:10 PM today. If you visit the link, you’ll notice that some posts flog Wilson for his actions, while others support the Congressman – and flog President Obama for his ideas on Health Care Reform. Either way, the blogosphere has been flooded with conversations, reactions and opinions on the matter.
So what?
Obama’s address aired on national broadcast media at 8 p.m. last night. While I don’t have the exact time, Wilson’s comment was made somewhere in the middle of the speech. That means in less than 18 hours, Wilson’s presence (or footprint) on the internet has been changed forever.
I’m not very political-minded, nor have I ever had much desire to get involved in politics. It’s simply a personal choice. And up until this morning, I honestly had no idea who Joe Wilson was. I sure do now. First impressions are powerful…
Does speed and reach of the social web ever scare you?
PS. To Congressman Wilson’s credit, he immediately and, in my opinion, genuinely apologized for his poor judgment and bad form. He did so publicly, and according the the Associated Press, he also made attempts to personally apologize to President Obama, though he was not able to reach the Oval Office directly. Sometimes people screw up. Wilson did some keen damage control by being transparent and keeping communications open during his personal crisis.
Join The Discussion!