AUGUSTA, GA — A local woman Monday afternoon successfully navigated the signup process, agreed to the terms of service, located a community Facebook group with thousands of members, typed a complete sentence, selected an audience setting of “public” visible to the entire internet-connected world, and hit post — before asking the group how she might go about contacting a news station.
The post, which read “How Can I Contact A News Station ????” and which was accompanied by four question marks suggesting the author found the situation as perplexing as everyone who subsequently read about it, immediately attracted 29 comments — making it one of the more engaged posts of the morning in the Connect Augusta group, which covers news and community discussion for the Augusta metropolitan area, which is served by several local news stations, all of which have websites, phone numbers, email addresses, social media accounts, and contact forms accessible via the same device used to compose the post.
The post received three likes. It received significantly more laughing emojis. These are separate metrics that tell a coherent story.
The Comment Section, Documented For Posterity
The community response was swift, diverse, and can be organized into several distinct schools of thought, each representing a different philosophy of online engagement:
The Observational School, led by one Anthony Carroll, who received 17 laughing emoji reactions — the most of any commenter — for the observation: “This shit is wild coming from someone posting on the Internet.” Mr. Carroll identified, with the precision of a man who has spent time on Facebook, the central paradox of the post: that the medium used to ask the question is itself the answer to the question, and that this went unnoticed. Kathy Richards replied that the comment “took her out,” which is the highest praise available in the Facebook comment ecosystem and which Mr. Carroll received with, presumably, some satisfaction.
The Practical School, represented by K Ayce N Olan (Top Contributor, a designation that carries weight in these communities), who replied “Google their number or find them on Facebook” — an answer so reasonable, so complete, and so achievable on the same phone being held at that moment that it required no follow-up questions and received seven likes from people who appreciated that someone had said it plainly.
The Terse School, whose sole representative was one Skyler Marker, who contributed the complete text: “Use your head.” Two words. Five likes. Highest efficiency ratio in the thread. Skyler Marker did not elaborate. Skyler Marker did not need to.
The Creative School, in which Alexander Napoles — showing the lateral thinking of a man unconstrained by the assumption that the question was meant literally — suggested: “Smoke signals.” This received no likes at press time, which Supposedly News considers an injustice and intends to note formally.
The Direct School, in which Zachary Potts cut through the theoretical debate to ask the genuinely useful question: “You wanna reach WRDW” — identifying that what the poster probably needed was not a philosophical framework for news station contact but the specific phone number of a specific station, which is a different and more solvable problem.
The Recursive School, in which Nate Mansions (All-Star Contributor, a rank above Top Contributor, earned through sustained excellence in comment sections across the Augusta Facebook ecosystem) replied: “Take that exact sentence and put it in Google.” This is the correct answer. This is also a sentence that, if followed, would produce the correct answer in under ten seconds. Nate Mansions received no likes at press time. Nate Mansions gave the best answer. These facts are both true.
The Vehicular School, a niche but enthusiastic faction led by Devon Brown (Top Contributor), who suggested the poster “Drive threw the front door… try to get some window too” — a recommendation that Supposedly News cannot endorse from a property damage or personal safety standpoint but which received five laughing emojis from people who found it proportionate to the occasion.
The Question Behind The Question
Brent Eyewitness, Field Reporter, would like to pause here and say something in defense of the original poster that the comment section largely did not say, which is this: the question “how do I contact a news station” is not, on its face, an unreasonable question. People contact news stations for legitimate reasons. They have tips. They have stories. They have concerns about local issues that deserve coverage. The instinct to reach out to local media is a healthy one in a functioning information ecosystem and should be encouraged.
The question is also answerable in three seconds via Google, Facebook, the news station’s own website, the news station’s own Facebook page, the phone book if the poster has access to a phone book, the television itself during the credits, or by asking any of the 29 people in the comment section who demonstrably know the answer and chose, as a group, to express it through the medium of mockery rather than the medium of a phone number.
This is the comment section’s failure as much as the poster’s. Forty-seven people engaged with this post. One of them asked if the poster meant WRDW specifically. None of them, in the visible portion of the thread, simply posted a phone number and a web address and called it a day. The community came together. It did not come together around the solution. It came together around the irony. This is very online behavior. It is, at this point, the default setting.
The Broader Implications
Supposedly News reached out to the news stations of Augusta, Georgia to ask if they had received any unusual contact attempts in the past 24 hours. They did not respond, possibly because our inquiry arrived via the internet, which is apparently not a universally understood medium in the greater CSRA.
We also reached out to Anthony Carroll to confirm that his comment did, in fact, “take him out” upon being written or whether it emerged in a more measured state. He has not responded. He has 17 laughing emojis and does not need us.
We reached out to Alexander Napoles regarding the smoke signals. No response. We considered this appropriate.
The news station contact information for Augusta, Georgia is available at the websites of WRDW, WJBF, WAGT, and WFXG. Their phone numbers are on those websites. Those websites are on Google. Google is on the internet. The internet is what you’re using right now.
You’ve got it from here.
Brent Eyewitness filed this report from Augusta, Georgia, where he contacted this publication using the internet. The process took less time than it took to read this article. He would like Nate Mansions to know that his answer was correct and that the lack of likes is not reflective of its quality. Smoke signals remain unconfirmed as a viable outreach strategy for local television news, but Supposedly News has not ruled it out.