Did News of the World invent anti-ITV World Cup tweet?
There were two disappointing goals in England debut match of the 2010 FIFA World Cup - obviously the schoolboy fumbling of goalie Robert Green that allowed the USA to equalise, but if you were watching on ITV HD, it was missing Captain Steven Gerrard's goal as the channel switched to an advert four minutes in!
Amid the uproar we were quick to tweet: "Massive #ITV FAIL! No more adverts you greedy cynics!" which was widely retweeted and thousands of others voiced their outrage at the advert break on Twitter and Facebook. ITV were quick to apologise and quietly blamed the company feeding them the pictures. That'll be why a Hyundai advert popped up and played to completion then?
However, if you want cynical exploitation it is worth checking out the News of the World today. Like many newspapers they quickly turned to social media to illustrate the outrage of fans over the ill-timed advert break. Including this somewhat dubious quote:
One fan Tweeted: "Someone needs sacking! Give the next World Cup to Sky!"
Really? Would that be the same Sky owned by Rupert Murdoch who also owns the News of the World? Well a quick search of Twitter's admittedly fallable search engine, and also using Google, only reveals the News of the World story and the people who have also spotted this nepotistic effort to promote Sky while kicking competitor ITV. No sign of that original tweet!
Admittedly they deserve credit for the brilliant headline of 'Hand of Clod' - which neatly resurrected the 'Hand of God' Maradonna incident, and also 'Shock and draw', which summed up the match nicely, but inventing a tweet? Honestly! Besides, it would have been simple to have tweeted that 'genuinely' so it could indeed be found. Still, you should never let the facts get in the way of a good story eh?