I'm not alone in thinking CNN doesn't understand priority.

I’ve written before about how most media folk don’t understand how properly to use text alerts, with CNN as a case-in-point.

Here’s a checklist for breaking news alerts. Fail one and hold your fire:

• Is it really timely?
• Does it matter greatly to more than 70% of the audience?
• Is it going to be new information for most readers?
• Is it not stupid celebrity news?
• Did someone important die, get convicted, or resign abruptly?
• Will your users feel cheated that they didn’t get the alert when they see it elsewhere in ten minutes?

In other words, if we’re going to say “duhh” when we read it, either because of prior knowledge or lack of interest, skip it.

Today's FAIL

Fewer shots, more hits, more impact.

Lead, follow or get out o' the way

Ted Turner has been a longtime hero of mine — It was an article he wrote about the media business that was the last push to leave a safe, lucrative publishing job to start a local media business.

I just stumbled on a nice CNN interview with him.

For me, this was the money-shot:

CNN: … [The book describes your] getting stuck on a sandbar, getting caught in a storm, almost dying off the coast of Cape Hatteras. … How did you go from being a sailor that got stuck on the reef and almost died to somebody who managed to win the America’s Cup on the Courageous?.

Turner: Well, the same way in baseball, [the Atlanta Braves] set a record for consecutive last-place finishes in divisional play in baseball. First four years, we finished last, four years in a row. But I stuck with it and after 18 years, we won the World Series. And that’s what I did with sailing.

CNN: Just stick to it?

Turner: Yeah. [I] stuck to it. And I wasn’t losing — I was just learning how to win.

[Insert clip of April huffing over the fact that she says such things and they roll off my back until I read them elsewhere and take them to heart.]