Journal

D E Alexander and 24/7 News Net Give New Meaning to Scum

I don’t often lose my temper but D.E. Alexander and his 24/7 News Net site brings new meaning to the word scum and lowlife. D.E. Alexander is allegedly an author and investigative journalist and 24/7 News Net is his alternative news site. Today, thanks to my close friend Gina, I learned that D.E. Alexander and his 24/7 News Net site is obviously happy to join the lines of human and media scum.

He has issued a press release of incredible poor taste – and I use the term press release very loosely – that is calling last night’s tragedy in Buffalo “The Friday the 13th Plane Crash”. D.E. Alexander then goes on to use the release as a reason to follow an alleged psychic who saw this happening. Funnily enough, the website of this *psychic* looks very similar to that of D.E. Alexander’s 24/7 News Net site – coincidence?

This is media and its lowest. This is nothing more than blatant capitalizing on tragedy for personal gain, notoriety, call it what you will. If D.E. Alexander thinks this is investigative journalism, he needs to think again.

If you look around D.E. Alexander’s site, you’ll see it has a Members Area where you can see “death pictures from the JFK assassination and Princess Diana.” This says all you need to know about 24/7 News Net and the *writer/journalist* that is D.E. Alexander.

It would appear that this may be a pseudonym, though, since going to Google brings up no results for D.E. Alexander. I wanted to contact him to ask about the release and his obvious lack of compassion and morality. No luck – and there’s no contact info on the 24/7 News Net website either.

There is some information about 24/7 News Net on WhoIs.net, that shows a registrant address in Philadelphia, with an admin address in Coral Springs, FL. Still, no contact number. Something to hide?

Tragedy happens all around us, as it did last night in Buffalo, and tragedy has to be reported. But using it in such an immoral and disgusting way – is there a place for that? Or is freedom of speech a given, regardless of how it’s used?

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A Matter of Black and White

: Image by dogsy via Flickr

Think of these names – Abraham Lincoln, Jesse Owens, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammed Ali, Arthur Ashe and Barack Obama. What do they mean to you? Great sports people, politicians and public speakers/activists? Or people who, with others, fought to offer black people better opportunities and rights and encourage integration and equality?

So why are the messages still not getting through?

According to a survey by Lattimer Communications, as many as 86% African-American women say marketers don’t understand them.

86%.

The biggest complaint is that the companies reaching out to them aren’t really communicating with them. Industry culprits include banking/financial, healthcare/pharmaceutical, fast food and the automotive industries.

Consider that the US auto industry calls Detroit “home”, a predominantly black city with almost 82% of its residents African-American. If an industry can’t even get it right with people on its own front doorstep, what’s going wrong?

Is the marketing industry (along with many others) guilty of targeting certain demographics and hoping everyone else joins in? Why does more than 3/4 of a consumer audience feel left out and disenchanted with how they’re sold to?

Sadly, I don’t have the answers. But others do. And they need to look at why they’re alienating such a large number of customers, before someone else does. Barack Obama was swept in on a promise of change – it’s time companies started living up to that premise.

What are you doing to reach out and communicate?

Small Print, Big Noise

: Image by moirabot via Flickr

Suite 101 is a reasonably well-known consumer website that uses multi-national freelance writers to provide its content. The writers only get paid from revenue generated by ads and page views, so it’s generally up-and-coming writers that tend to provide the content.

Recently, an email was sent out to all the site’s writers about a competition that’s being run. Up for grabs are three prizes of $101 for three different writers.

All the site’s writers have to do is write about spring, and if their name is one of the three randomly chosen by the Editor, they’ll win the $101. Great incentive, right?

Not exactly – here’s where the small print about entry regulations offers a nice kick in the teeth.

Only writers published in February can enter (so if you wrote about spring in January already, tough).
You have to publish a minimum of five articles about spring. They also have to pass the editorial process, and if one of them needs editing, it’s discounted as one of the five.
Only writers from Canada (except Quebec), the United States or the United Kingdom can enter. Which seems bizarre, since the parent company of the site is German and it uses writers worldwide.

So, all of a sudden, the $101 is only for a select group of people (despite the great work that other writers on the site offer) and you need five “perfect-first-time” articles to qualify.

The minimum word count per article on this site is 300 words. You also need to provide your own images, search engine optimization and formatting. So, generally, an article could take an hour or two to write when coupled with research and tools needed. Suddenly that $101 doesn’t look so enticing, except for the website in question that gets a whole slew of new content to please its advertisers.

I’m sure they may feel that the small print covers their backs when it comes to how crappy this deal is. The problem with small print, though, is that if it’s too small then people start using magnifying glasses to read it. And when it’s magnified, small print can have a habit of coming back and biting you on the ass, especially if it’s perceived as unfair to the end user.

Your choice.

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Market Value

: Image via Wikipedia

In Toronto, the main public transport system is the TTC, or Toronto Transit Commission. They handle buses, streetcars and subway trains for the Greater Toronto Area, which is a pretty wide circle of commuters. They had a pretty stormy 2007 and early 2008, with disputes between employees and management and fairly poor service for its 2.5 million daily users.

Yet in the last six months the TTC has been visibly trying to repair damaged bridges. They’re decommissioning their aging streetcars and replacing with energy-efficient LRV’s instead. They’re looking to increase the amount of subway connections to the commuters that really need it. Their buses are being replaced by hybrid vehicles, to fall in line with the Ontario eco-friendly program.

Add to this the improved (yet still not ideal) employee structures, the OneStop Media LCD information screens in stations keeping commuters up-to-date with the latest news as they travel and the fact that TTC fares have stayed the same $2.75 since 2007, and things are looking much better for the company.

Compare that with Mississauga Transit, which is about 36 miles from Toronto yet still falls within the GTA area and is serviced by the TTC subway system. They’ve just put their prices up from $2.75 to $3.00 (this is the same whether you’re a child in grades 1-8 or senior citizen – no discount there).

They’ve cut a lot of services, and many don’t run on a Sunday – not even to some of the larger shopping malls where local retailers count on consumers to stay afloat. They recently closed down one of their main bus stations for upgrades and moved the passenger embarking area without any clear cut announcements. Services at peak time are often 20 minutes to half an hour apart.

They do have a shiny new email alert system for delays, so it’s not all bad…

Market value is a key commodity between businesses and their customers. Word of mouth, both good and bad, is the currency behind the value. What are your customers saying about you?

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