A Social Media Success Story: Mike Arrington punks the NYT and AP

It’s telling that the New York Times and Associated Press, two companies at the top of the traditional media pyramid with unlimited resources, have erred embarrassingly in the recent AP quote policy brouhaha. This mess has cost them not only credibility but also clearly demonstrates that they don’t understand the social media phenomenon at its most fundamental level.

These two traditional media titans, recognizing they are in deep trouble, resorted to citing an “Association” that no one has ever heard of to try to lend credence to whatever crap they invented to save their hides. And in a pre-social media world they would have gotten away with it.

The difference now is that Mike Arrington is big enough to have become an insider to the traditional media’s inner circle. And Mike has the understanding of the benefits of truth and transparency that underlie social media, to let folks know what’s going on. And the balls.

Never before did the masses have immediate and widespread access to an insider looking two media titans in the face and calling “Bullshit”.

How could the NYT/AP think a “Media Bloggers Association” that didn’t already include Arrington be credible? Arrington got most of the major Presidential candidates for interviews and broke the YouTube acquisition among other journalistic successes. It would be fair to consider him the top media blogger/web journalist in the blogosphere. (Who knew coming from an unaccomplished lawyer and failed entrepreneur?) Simply put, a “Media Bloggers Association” that doesn’t include Arrington, or more specifically one that he’s never heard of, doesn’t matter.

And that makes this a great example of how social media is taking a sledgehammer to existing media practices and principles.

This is also a little analog to the “early adopter” meme and further serves to illustrate just how early we are in the adoption curve. If the NYT and AP, two large companies whose future success is directly impacted by their ability to understand and make the transition into social media can screw up this badly, just how many people really understand social media today?

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