Former Texas Governor Couldn't Recall Name Of Agency In 2012 Debate
Twice-failed GOP presidential candidate and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is Donald Trump's leading candidate to head the Department of Energy.
Bloomberg News reported Sunday that while Perry is at the top of President-elect Trump's list, Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, along with Dallas investor Ray Washburn, are still in the mix for the post.
In 2012, Perry ran on a platform of eliminating the Department of Energy, along with the Department or Commerce and the Department of Education. However, during his infamous "oops" moment in a debate against eventual GOP nominee Mitt Romney, Perry couldn't recall the third agency he wanted to eliminate.
After dropping out of this year's GOP presidential primary, Perry served as a Trump adviser. In August, Perry slammed Gold Star father Khizr Khan for criticizing Trump's anti-Muslim views during his remarks at the Democratic National Convention.
You mention the Navy, for example, and the fact that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets. We have these things called aircraft carriers and planes land on them. We have ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. It’s not a game of Battleship where we’re counting ships, it’s ‘What are our priorities?’
1. Aurora
On July 20, 2012, the country woke up to news that a young man had walked into an Aurora, Colorado movie theater, set off a smoke bomb and opened fire on movie-watchers gathered for a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises.
Information about the story came fast and furious from local stations and cable news networks alike, but the actual basic facts -- killed, injured, the shooters -- took longer to sort out.
While the story continued to be filtered through secondhand accounts or politicized by major outlets, firsthand accounts were available, in real time, thanks to Twitter. Poynter’s Julie Moos put together a Storify document chronicling these Tweets -- from moviegoers expressing excitement before the film, to the first alerts that something had gone wrong, to major news outlets’ -- like NPR -- attempting to grasp what has happening through those tweeting.
Meanwhile, on Reddit, 18-year-old Morgan Jones offered a comprehensive timeline of the incident, including real-time updates and information on who to call to find out more. The timeline cited information from police scanners, various news outlets, and, notably, from fellow Reddit users. The timeline cut through the noise by offering a list of information in the order in which it was known.
How Social Media Did It Better: The Aurora shooting showed social media’s ability to act as a real-time news source, as well as demonstrating the futility of attempting to be the “first” to break a story in the midst of confusion.
2. Presidential Debates
It used to be that this was as interactive as the presidential debates got. Indeed, the first town hall-style presidential debate -- where questions were asked directly by voters in the audience -- was held in 1992, not too long ago, relatively speaking.
But, this election year, social media allowed voters to become armchair pundits with a truly influential platform all their own. Watching a debate became a communal experience, and established news brands noticed, writing about their role in offering insight to the issues most important to voters.
But social media proved not only powerful in the hands of the peanut gallery and punditry -- it was used directly by candidates themselves. This year, we saw the first “Twitter debate” in the form of 140TownHall, which was moderated by NBC host S.E. Cupp and attended by Republican presidential hopefuls Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Thaddeus McCotter, and eventual Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.
And then, of course, there’s social media’s role in creating and promoting memes faster than a political intern can frantically google “PR disaster.” Nearly the minute after the phrase “binders full of women” had left Mitt Romney’s lips, Tumblr gave us a blog that managed to keep the meme going until four weeks ago. And let’s not forget the instantaneous stream of image macros inspired by Romney’s comments regarding PBS and Big Bird.
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How Social Media Did It Better: Social media worked to -- and no joke intended here -- democratized politics by allowing voters access to the candidates, one another, and major outlets. It also made politics a communal experience -- and one that allowed people to have fun with memes. These, in turn, were covered by more traditional outlets, proving once again that social media doesn’t only allow people to share or comment on the news, but to BE the news.
3. Shooting at the Empire State Building
As with the shooting in Aurora, coverage of the August 24th shooting at the Empire State Building once again demonstrated that television news can prove an inadequate means of conveying accurate information quickly. In the rush to be first to report on the incident, networks got basic facts about the shooting wrong, including how many people were killed or injured, and whether they were hit by the shooter or by police responding to the incident.
Twitter helped sort through the noise with live images from the scene and a play-by-play from people working nearby.
In addition, a Reddit thread was created as a means of gathering and checking information as it came out... and an outlet for collectively shaking heads over the media’s rush to get information out first:
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How Social Media Did It Better: Once again, social media put the power directly in people’s hands, allowing them to communicate information directly to one another without an intermediary in the form of major news outlets.
4. Sandy
Social media proved beneficial during Hurricane Sandy’s collision with the East Coast. It also showed its limitations. Between information about the storm’s path, its impact, and breaking news about hospital evacuations, came false reports and outright trolling that was quickly shared all over the web. There were manipulated or misleading images, to headlines made to trick the more gullible among us. One troll in particular -- @ComfortablySmug -- was identified after having tweeted a number of false “reports” during the storm.
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Forbes’ Kashmir Hill summed up why this prevalent issue with social media showed a flaw in how more mainstream outlets gather and share news:
[Ma]ny Tweeps and journalists desperate for new information about the storm took him at his 140 characters. Given the likelihood that a tweet will be encountered without context, subtle satire does not play well during a disaster. Some of the journalists taken in by him are now eager to crucify him.
How Social Media Did It Better: It brought people together during a time that they may not have been able to access television or radio, informing and comforting them. It also taught everyone a lesson in confirming sources before sharing.
5. Israel/Palestine Conflict
Social media’s ability to offer real-time insight into unfolding events took an unforeseen turn in mid-November, when the Israeli military launched an actual, literal battle with social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr offering the world a play-by-play.
On November 15th, following an air strike that resulted in the death of a top Hamas leader, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted that he hoped Hamas -- or, rather, #Hamas -- and “other terrorists in Gaza” had “got[ten] the message” that Israel would not tolerate rocket attacks, adding that “terrorists in Gaza are committing a double war crime.”
The Israeli Defense Force worked to establish a presence across various social media platforms, tweeting updates, images, and video from the @IDFspokesperson account, including an image of the slain Hamas commander with the word "eliminated" stamped over his face.
As Reuters’ Gerry Shih reported, the Al-Qassam Brigades also used Twitter, under its @AlqassamBrigade account, to offer the world a look at the violence , including highlighting the “deaths of Palestinian children due to Israeli attacks, and used hashtags like ‘#terrorism.’
On Instagram, young members of the IDF posted pictures of themselves preparing for battle, with hashtags like #Israel, #army, and #soldier... along with things like #cute, #girls, and #rockstar.
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How Social Media Did It Better (and Worse): Social media allowed two battling factions a platform to craft, parlay, and control their message. It's clear social media was used as both a source of information and as a tool for propaganda. That said, it gave the average person a new and close view of an old conflict.
