Canadian Politician And Newspaper Battle It Out On Twitter – And Then Make Up

Maybe Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi was advised against having an all-out Twitter war with the media, or maybe it’s just the fact that Canadians are “nice”, but he has diffused what could have been a lengthy and fiery spat between himself and the local Calgary Sun newspaper on Twitter. If you’re looking for a lesson on dealing with a Twitter fight, here’s one for you.

It all started over the weekend, with Mayor Nenshi questioning the facts that a Calgary Sun news editor tweeted our earlier that day.

The editor of the Calgary Sun (@SUNRickyLeong) tweeted to the Mayor that inflation in the city was closer to 0 than 3 percent. An innocent tweet, except for the fact that the stats were wrong.

Mayor Nenshi (@nenshi) tweeted several rebuking stats to the editor, starting with this tweet which included a link to a Stats Canada page:

“Wow. The Sun makes stuff up. Awesome. Here are the latest stats: 3.7% this month and going up.”

They eventually got into a bit of an angry exchange. Nothing was said that couldn’t be taken back, but there was a fair bit of sarcasm and jibes going back and forth.

However, if any politician or professional out there is looking for advice on getting out of a negative situation on Twitter, take a page from Nenshi’s book. Rather than draw this out, he sent two tweets apologizing – without backing down from his original position, mind you – to the Sun:

Fighting with the media is nothing new in the political ring, but the public nature of the fights thanks to Twitter is. So it’s refreshing to see a politician step up and pour water on a heated tweet battle before it got too out of hand.

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.