Wednesday, September 30, 2009

#Iqualuit

As you can tell from the sidebar, I may have been a late adopter of Twitter, but it is a journalistic tool that I have embraced fully... even though I just got my glass house shattered.

For a few weeks now, we have been tracking stories with obvious mistakes about Nunavut with the hashtag #Iqualuit. I'm sure you all remember that typo from the Prime Minister's visit here.

Iqaluit means place of many fish. Iqualuit means a particular form of bad personal hygeine that results in a poop odour. Typos about Nunavut match quite nicely with that description, so we tag them #Iqualuit.

Our local National Broadcaster had Nunavut as Nunavet for a few minutes online today, and when it is the local National Broadcaster, the #Iqualuit is even better. Nothing like taking a good shot at your professional friends.

Then, an hour later, the national broadcaster I work for made the same mistake in a Tweet. Nunavet, not Nunavut.... after I had just Tweeted about the others mistake.

As you can imagine, I am now surrounded by the remnants of my glass house. Humility is a lesson I learn over and over and over again.

But, despite that, I still love Twitter. Where else can you crack jokes about having to play the Celtics with Reggie Evans himself? Where else can I get the guys who run Raptors TV to use my suggestions for interviews? Where else can I find out that The Fat Boys are trying to get back together?

I'll clean up a little glass for that.