Fox News botches Live Chat
I just participated in a live streaming chat session on myfoxchicago.com, and the lasting impression that I’m taking way is that Fox has yet to completely embrace social media and how to participate in a discussion rather than a broadcast. It felt like when a parent tries to be ‘cool’ with their kids. They’re anxious to participate, but their skewed view of what you’re doing, combined with their anxiety about fitting in gives the parent an awkward countenence, which is immediately identified by the child and in turn inturrupts the real discussion from ever happening.
Two major points turned my stomach:
ONE) The discussion was inturrupted 3 times for advertisements during the 15-20 talk. The person conducting the chat via streaming video was cut off, as was the dialogue box, so that I was forced to watch a 30 second Pampers commercial. By doing that, I lose valuable time interacting with the person they’ve chosen to talk with their audience. By the time the chat was fully restored, it was nearly 45 seconds. The really disappointing part is that the chat didn’t stop while the commercial ran, so Fox is taking away content that I actively came to see. If they practiced this ad placement on a news article, it would be like placing a banner ad on the page that obstructs the view of a full paragraph. Even more aggrivating is the fact that two banner ads have already been served up to me on the chat page. So after I had typed a question in to the dialogue box, the commercial ran, and when my feed came back, the person hosting the chat had already answered it. I have no way of rewinding or finding out what she had to say about my topic.
TWO) The chat box was being filtered. I don’t know if it was the host or Fox News, but one of them was choosing which comments from the chat showed up in the dialogue box. A line would only show up right before it was addressed by the host. Part of the reason this is disappointing was because they did not disclose that this is how the chat is run at the beginning, or anywhere on the chat page. Perhaps if they did, I wouldn’t feel slighted. But that is hard to say, because even if that happened, I might still feel cheated because I’m not seeing what EVERYONE has to say. I’m only seeing what Fox News wants me to see, which gives me the impression that Fox is controlling the dialogue. The whole point of social media is that everyone is free to say what they want, when they want, and to whom they want. Filtering a discussion leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Yuck.
To summarize, I will not actively participate in any more discussions on foxnewschicago.com. I don’t see the value in it, and I would not reccomend it to anyone else. They have done a disservice to themselves by conducting the live chat in this manner. This is bad move for them not only because they are doing it poorly, but because others are doing it well. I believe this is yet another example of old school media that is slow to adapt and is missing opportunities to connect and grow with their audience.
