WLOSer Mario Boone: One loose Twitter trigger finger

Jason Sandford February 3, 2012

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

WLOSer Mario Boone has only been on the job in Asheville for a couple of months, but he’s already made a name for himself – as a newsmen with an itchy Twitter finger.

Over the past few weeks, Boone has tweeted incorrect news. In one case, he reported that a jury in murder trial had arrived at a verdict when it had not. Just yesterday, Boone tweeted that U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler was resigning from his post, when in fact Shuler was just announcing that he wasn’t seeking re-election. In both case, Boone came back with the right information.

From Mario Boone’s page on Twitter:

BREAKING Now: U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler resigning from Congress

BREAKING Now: Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC) will finish out term and not seek re-election to congress. Full story on www.WLOS.com
BREAKING Now: verdict reached in David Penley murder trial.
CORRECTION: Penley jury has not reached a verdict. Penley’s mom thought jury had verdict when they really wanted lunch

In at least two other cases, Boone was less than tactful in his tweets, and in those cases, faced with a backlash, Boone deleted some of what he wrote.

Twitter is a lightning fast platform for breaking news and thus must be handled with care. It’s a lesson I’ve learned, and one that Boone is catching on to.

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Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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5 Comments

bmac555 December 30, 2012

Without Greenville/Spartanburg, Asheville would be ranked around 120th. However, the WLOS/WMYA doesn’t really cater to the area that provides most of its audience.

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Avlnc February 8, 2012

This type of “trigger finger” behavior shows that he is a real amateur, not a strong journalist. Granted, Asheville is a very small tv market, but these types of errors should not be tolerated by WLOS management. I suspect he will have a very short career at WLOS.

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1. John February 9, 2012
  
  Actually Asheville, Greenville, Spartanburg is the 37th largest market in the country (out of 200).
  
  Reply
  1. Mike February 9, 2012
    
    dank dank
    
    Reply