Since the tragic events in Mumbai, there has been a lot of coverage of the role of Twitter in breaking news, with both advocates and critics referring to the speed of microblogging in providing updates but raising some questions about validity and honesty.
But to be fair, Mainstream Media (MSM) has been increasingly paying attention to Twitter over the last few months:
- LA Times: SoCal earthquake has everyone a-Twitter
- The Rocky Mountain News twittered from a funeral When Twitter goes bad: newspaper tweets a funeral
- Newspapers that Twitter – October Figures (Ignore the strange header message on the blog at the moment!)
- CNN incorporates Twitter into live shows, e.g. with Rick Sanchez (@ricksanchezcnn)
- CNN and the BBC both refer to Twitter for updates on Mumbai.
There are plenty more examples around, so it’s almost incredible that a mainstream UK publication can still create something quite so inept:
You can hear millions screaming in pain as they collectively answer ThisisLondon – ‘No, you buffoon’.
12 negative comments have already been posted, including mine. Sadly they edited out the link to www.140char.com, and others have had comments edited, with no public acknowledgement. Tech journalist Kate Bevan (@katebevan) has also been expressing her disapointment on Twitter, and having her comments edited. Also got negative comments from Amanda Rose (@amandita), who has researched Twitter extensively for academia (including interviewing yours truly!).
I’m not sure it’s worth the energy to deconstruct all the disasters yet again, so here’s my brief comments:
- Badly researched, angled and written.
- It’s 140 characters on Twitter, not 160.
- Barack and Britney are manned by PR people, unlike real celebs ranging from Stephen Fry to Shaquille O’Neal.
- The latest figures show about 5 million users per month.
- The ‘brevity breeds banality’ issue has been debated, disproved and forgotten for months – brevity can lead to impact or banality depending on the person and content.
- Twitter started becoming a news source with events like the UK, LA and Chinese earthquakes, and LA forest fires.
- The ‘gimmick’ isn’t following people – the ‘gimmick’ is interacting with people via the reply functionality.
And there’s more. From the article:
‘after several false starts (“Error on page!”) I manage to log on to MoodyShell’s feed. “I hate it when I burn the roof of my mouth and then it starts to peel. Ew!” she says. Fascinating. Another click, and I am officially “following” her. It feels queasy and wrong.’
No wonder it feels wrong, when @nickcurtis hasn’t managed to follow anyone, and has only managed a solitary tweet. You’d also think if you’re posting something about Twitter, it might be worth popping back to check the response? Maybe it would make for a better article?
Maybe someone should point him to the appropriate Twitter search. Or just pointed him to all the similar articles from 18 months ago that were at least defensible by the fact that it was a new service with an initial familiarity hump to get other – everyone struggles with Twitter the first time they log in, and it’s only when they return and start following and using @replies it becomes an essential tool for research,interaction,news gathering, customer service and more.