UPDATE: Is there something weird about the NewsHub twitter account?

 

I found myself ‘following’ the new NewsHub account which is weird because I can’t remember ever having chosen t0 follow them in the first place.

There seems to be something really weird with the NewsHub twitter account, because they already have over 12 thousand followers.

Really?

Radio NZ has the largest audience of any network in NZ and they have just over 8000 followers.

The Paul Henry show has 11 thousand followers.

7 Sharp, the largest current affairs show in NZ has just over 20 000 followers.

The old 3 News twitter account had just ver 15000 followers and that was on air for decades.

So how has a news show that hasn’t even started yet managed to gain over 12 000 followers?

The account was started in 2011 which suggests someone had big plans for TV3 5 years ago or it’s been an account that’s been sold to MediaWorks.

It smells like someone has bought a lot of twitter followers all of a sudden. Is this the sort of integrity we are to expect from NewsHub? Inflating their social media footprint in a sad attempt to justify the destruction TV3 Management have wrecked upon the ever diminishing audience?

UPDATE: MediaWorks have tweeted me back and admitted that what they’ve done is take their old radio live account and turned it into their new NewsHub account. Some have claimed ‘that’s just a rebrand you idiot’ – nonsense. A rebrand would be taking the TV3 News Twitter account and making that the new NewsHub account, the didn’t d that. They took the largest old Radio Live account they had and changed that so as to make the Newshub look more popular than they actually are.

 

For a news brand so damaged by destroying their credibility by killing off investigative journalism and Campbell Live, rebranding a Twitter account to deceitfully inflate the new one isn’t a great start.