Cluetrain: Transparency in (media) Organizations (CNN)
The Cluetrain told us the web works in funny ways. Ways that organizations and companies aren’t quite used to yet. Rogue individuals inside companies have been putting up sites, and big companies sometimes show embarassing mistakes. Inside, you’ll read a story about web communities, giant news companies, normal people. You’ll also read obituaties for Dick Cheney and Fidel Castro. They haven’t died yet.
At approximately 3pm Central, Fark posted links to two sites on CNN, which showed how CNN was preparing for the deaths of famous people such as Dick Cheney, Fidel Castro, the Pope, and the Queen of England.
The links on Fark were immediately taken down, but they pointed to sandbox.cnn.com, which was available from the “outside”.
This site was used as a staging area for future stories to be posted by people working on the CNN website. In particular, someone named Peter Rentz had quite a site going for himself. This is the kind of transparency the Cluetrain spoke about.
However, the site quickly got taken down, obviously squashed by Peter’s higher-ups. I’ll hold off comments about what probably went down.
Anyway, my curiosity was piqued, and I managed to come across only one individual who found this site a little under a year ago.
The email correspondence between this blog owner and Peter Rentz is interesting. Peter Wrote:
Yes “it (the CNN.com development Site)” is real.
i thought it was password protected from the outside but i guess not.
It probably would be a good idea to take the link down since a bit of that stuff is confidential. Or not.
And in further correspondence, he wrote:
keep the link up. probably not a big deal.
Well, it appears to be a big deal now. Oh well. I’ve had beefs with CNN in the past, and this just gives me a little more ammo. Sigh. This site being taken down serves as proof that large organizations (*cough*cnn*cough*) just can’t get on the Cluetrain.
Update:
The Smoking Gun picked up the story from Fark, and has screenshots.