Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, perhaps the city’s first major social media mayor, knows some people say he’s thin-skinned.
But he says he's got a reason for taking his critics head-on: the rapid pace of the Internet and widespread availability of information.
"A story can be known around the world in 35 minutes now," Reed said in a recent sit-down with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "When a story that is particularly inaccurate or inappropriate is left unchallenged, today it actually stands as fact."
The majority of his messages are sanguine and affirming, but he has little patience for social media haters.
That's why he's built an online platform that's larger than most American mayors, he points out, ticking off the number of followers he has on Facebook (43,570) Instagram (5,900), email list-serves (25,000) and Twitter (101,000).
“To the extent that you have the capability to respond … Why wouldn’t you want to make the record?” Reed said. “On some of these things, I think it’s important to set the record straight.”
If critics want to Monday morning quarterback him, he said, “you have to be willing to put your life and your accomplishments up against what I’ve done.”
Read more about Reed's controversial leadership style on myAJC.com and in Sunday's AJC.
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