Tuesday, September 18, 2012

USAT | In stock markets, news you must choose

[Updated at 9:09 a.m. ET Sept. 19.] Looks like the techies got it fixed.

[Updated at 9:50 a.m. ET.] Stock markets resumed trading 20 minutes ago, and the three indexes are once more down, according to (ahem) Marketwatch. Still no correct data on the beta homepage, however. Worth noting, of course, that there'll always be lots of glitches in an engineering project as big as this one. That's why it's called beta.

My original 5:54 a.m. ET post: Did the Dow Jones Industrial Average close up or down yesterday? Nearly 14 hours after trading ended, USA Today's beta homepage shows it both ways for all three of the major stock market indexes. (Note: In fact, they all fell.)


Related: Gannett's stock closed at $17.72 a share, up (yes!) 14 cents.

10 comments:

  1. One of the local radio stations in Phoenix runs a MarketWatch market recap weekdays at 1:56. Problem is, it's usually YESTERDAY's recap.

    E-mailed the PD (to be fair, he is in charge of FIVE stations) many months ago, and got a nice "I'll check into it" response. Fixed it. For a week.

    E-mailed him again. Fixed it. For a DAY. Sent one more e-mail, which resulted in one more fix. A week later, and ever since (it's been months) it's been yesterday's recap. Makes them look really dumb when the market today was up 200 and the recap says "quiet day on Wall Street". Tends to erode that whole "media knows what they're doing, and I get the facts as a consumer" narrative.

    The point is, automation is a bitch. With any luck, she'll give you a severance package.

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  2. Jim, This post has been up for hours, and the markets are still +- on the home page. How can NO ONE notice that?? Of course, if we're lucky, it will change now as the markets open. But geez. They need to monitor their own site.

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  3. In fact, I posted a comment about this at 6 p.m. last night in an earlier thread.

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  4. Just noticed that the Money page is the same. It's 9:45 a.m. and all three markets (next to a "right now" ribbon show green arrows next to yesterday's negative numbers. Whew. Major snafu. Is anyone awake there?

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  5. They've finally got live numbers on both home page and Money page, but those pesky green arrows and plus signs are still in front of the negative numbers. Let's hope the markets turn positive. USAT apparently has no down arrows...

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  6. 9:50 Unfortunately, the live numbers appear to be wrong -- that, or USAT's right and everyone else is wrong.

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  7. You're right. And the numbers on the home page and the Money page differ from each other (and are completely wrong anyway). Either they can't fix their feed (and arrows) or they don't care.

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  8. The "beta" site is just that -- a test site where bugs and issues can and will be fixed. There are quite a few fixes that need to be made. That's why it is a beta site.

    Everything pointed out here so far at the blog has been a known issue they are trying to resolve. Thank you for noticing, though. it helps.

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  9. Really, 12:02? The USAT website can't get the most basic information to display correctly?

    For $150, I can buy a weather station for my house with time, temp, humidity, rainfall, wind, dewpoint et al. I can have that information ported into my computer and uploaded onto my webpage.

    Or I can just have the official NWS reading displayed. As countless motels and chambers of commerce have been doing FOR YEARS.

    Poor shill job by you.

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  10. See what happens when all your energy goes into marketing dots... The more things change, the more they stay the same at the nation's idiotic newspaper/parochial website.

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Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

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