Media Coverage of "Famously Hot Jobs" Launch

WIS News 10
Reporter: Jennifer Emert
wistv.com - Columbia, South Carolina |

WLTX News 19
Reporter: Jennifer Bellamy

The City of Columbia Launches “Famously Hot Jobs”

Innovative Job Matching Platform Powered by TweetMyJobs to Boost Local Employment and Enhance Economic Development

Columbia, SC – Mayor Steve Benjamin, on Thursday, launched “Famously Hot Jobs,”  a new online jobs platform powered by TweetMyJobs that revolutionizes recruitment by incorporating mobile and social media.  “Famously Hot Jobs” will assist local job seekers in the Columbia metro area by offering an easy and user-friendly online tool to facilitate their search for employment.

Columbia (SC) Mayor Steve Benjamin

announces the launch of "Famously

Hot Jobs" website on Thursday, Sept.

27, 2012. (Photo: Mike Woolfolk)

Mayor Benjamin unveiled “Famously Hot Jobs” at a press conference on Main Street, where a recent Facade Grant program leveraged $425,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to create over $6 million in private investment.  Mayor Benjamin was joined by representatives of several local businesses including Time Warner Cable, Palmetto Health, the University of South Carolina, AFLAC and Avantech, which all have joined “Famously Hot Jobs.”

“Famously Hot Jobs” provides job seekers with information on thousands of jobs in multiple industries at all levels of employment. Even more remarkable is that, thanks to the partnership between the City of Columbia and TweetMyJobs, residents and businesses alike can use “Famously Hot Jobs” for free which is welcome news to the roughly 31,000 unemployed and estimated 45,000 underemployed men and women living throughout Metro Columbia.

The Race to be First: Social Media's Slippery News Slope

There are lessons we all can learn from the handling of information concerning the death of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno.  Coach Paterno died on Sunday morning following a two-month battle with lung cancer.  Unfortunately, several news organizations prematurely reported Paterno's passing on Saturday night based, ultimately, on unconfirmed information first posted by a student media website on the Penn State campus.

Onward State claimed it had multiple sources who confirmed Coach Paterno's death and posted the news online around 8:45 pm Saturday.  CBS Sports gave the story viral life by posting a Paterno obituary on its website, seemingly based on information from the Onward State post.

Many organizations and individuals followed suit, tweeting and re-tweeting links to the CBS story on Twitter and posting on Facebook.  (I'm guilty of both.)  Here in Columbia, the mis-information found its way into coverage of the GOP primary as news anchors paused to announce the "breaking news" that Joe Paterno had died.  In all cases, ti would seem that everyone trusted (assumed) that CBS had vetted the information and that it was accurate.  We learned how wrong that we were when Paterno's sons took to Twitter to let everyone know the rumors of their father's death were premature.