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Clay Travis on why every writer/journalist needs to be active on Twitter

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Double Down, Dec 29, 2011.

  1. Ice9

    Ice9 Active Member

    Every time I log into Facebook now, it's telling me to subscribe to one of the 5,000 people who apparently "founded" Facebook, a "social media editor" at some newspaper 800 miles away, or Zuckerberg's ugly sister. And they're all wicked preachy. I can't take it anymore.
     
  2. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    I agree. Everyone is more concerned with being first instead of being correct.
     
  3. 21

    21 Well-Known Member

    You're missing the point. It may not be a source of verified news, but it's a barometer of what the media is talking about, if that matters in your line of work. So when everyone is 'buzzing' about something, even if it turns out to be complete fallacy, we don't sound like clueless dummies when we're asked, 'Did you hear anything about....?' I'd rather be able to say, 'yeah, heard it, sounds shaky to me/looking into it,' than respond with, '(pause) Huh?'
     
  4. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    These were reports being passed along as facts by journalists?
     
  5. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    Favre and Gruden, absolutely. Gruden by the Miami Herald's beat writer, Favre by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Not only journalists, but journalists in the cities directly involved --- and thus, IMO, expected to be 100 percent accurate. I for one don't mind being clueless about things that aren't true. It's hard enough to keep from being clueless about the things that ARE true.

    On one message board was the following . . .

    "Paul Finnebaum just tweeted "Manny Navarro,from the Miami Herald: 'Hearing Jon Gruden has agreed to $3.4 mil deal to become UM's next coach. Trying hard to confirm...'"

    Why not CONFIRM it --- as either true or untrue --- BEFORE tweeting anything about it?

    And so it goes.
     
  6. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    Because it's more important to be first than correct.
     
  7. spikechiquet

    spikechiquet Well-Known Member

    He writes: "Honestly, if you follow more than about 500 people on Twitter you're probably following too many people to actually get much benefit from Twitter."

    Um, so I can only follow 500 people on Twitter? That limits my changes to get breaking news then.
    How can Twitter be the "next big thing" if we can't even follow all the people we need to follow?

    I can answer that...because most of the tweets people post are junk. Eliminate the junk and maybe...MAYBE!...Twitter will become the end-all, be-all.
     
  8. Or ... you can ignore his advice and follow more than 500 people and use lists.
     
  9. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    In my role as Devil's Advocate and Idiot DeLuxe, doesn't the word 'hearing' indicate that a rumor is floating around? Doesn't that let the Tweeter a little off the hook as far as "reporting" goes?
     
  10. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    No. Reporting you "heard" something is lazy.
     
  11. BB Bobcat

    BB Bobcat Active Member

    I only follow about 250 people. I follow just about every legit MLB journalist in the country, and a few randoms associated with my alma mater, iPhone stuff, etc.

    I am not interested in being the first to see every bit of news that happens relating to anything. When really big news happens (like Bin Laden's assasination) it only takes a few minutes before everyone, including baseball writers, starts talking about it.

    As for the "hearing," I think that's a problem of twitter. There is such a push to get every detail ASAP, and also the medium is inherently "rumorish" that it suddenly becomes OK to report rumors like this.

    I once tweeted that an MLB official had "heard that Team A had offered Players X and Y for Player Z." That was all I knew, and as I told people, if I knew any more I'd have written a story instead of a tweet. Anyway, it got circulated so fast and people started accepting it as fact.

    But I did get about 200 new followers within 5 minutes. :)
     
  12. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    It also isn't reporting.
     
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