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

Many of you may dislike the messenger, but there are a lot of good points here.

http://outkickthecoverage.com/2011-belonged-to-twitter.php

 

I have to agree with pretty much everything Clay says there. I don't understand why there are so many reporters out there still not on Twitter.

 

Up front: I am not a writer.

I tried Twitter. I really did. And I realize I don't see as much breaking stuff as I would if I were on there nonstop. But I just can't handle it.

 

You're right.

In scrolling the bolded points, right again. On it. Still dislike the messenger.

 

He's correct. Unfortunately.

I'm on Twitter and have been for a long time, but I really feel like I'm forcing myself to open TweetDeck these days. I'm just tired of the constant deluge of links and "breaking news." Sometimes it feels like it's actually hindering me from doing my work instead of contributing to my efforts (it probably is, actually). But it's hard to deny how much info is on Twitter. You simply can't ignore it.

But as a beat writer, it's simply exhausting trying to chase every nugget that gets thrown out there. Especially during coaching search time. All these "Football Rumor Mills" will tweet a tidbit and then everyone takes it as gospel. Editors call. People go nuts. Sometimes it's correct and sometimes it's not. Anything to feed the beast. It gets old quickly and I'm not sure it's the greatest thing in the world for journalism.

But, really, I don't see it getting better any time soon, so I guess I'll quit bitching. It just seems like my burnout meter runs much hotter when TweetDeck is constantly updating on the corner of my computer screen.

 

I agree fully ... call me old fashioned, but when it comes to "breaking news," I'd rather have it be factual than fast. Today's example is Adam Schefter's clashing posts two hours apart.

 

I used to despise Twitter, but that was really before I understood that Twitter is exactly what you want it to be, basically. If you're a Writer (with a capital W) you certainly don't have to follow every player and chase soundbites like a crackhead chases a fix. You can follow you favorite Writers (again, capital W) and just get links to their stories. And tweet out links to your own stories, thus making it clear that YOU are responsible for the content that's being produced, not your COMPANY. I think that's important, actually, in an era where companies view their writers as inter-changeable, and often times disposable, commodities.

Can long-form writers function without Twitter? Of course. But I think a lot of them function really well WITH Twitter, and more people end up reading their stories.

 

Yes, if your job as a writer doesn't involve the active reporting of news or a need to be aware of it in a timely fashion, then you can get by without Twitter. Not many of those jobs left.

 

I'm no fan of Twitter, but that was a pretty convincing argument.

As a copy desker, I don't have much to tweet about ... but I've been told by others who do that one of the occasional columns I write for my shop ended up getting quite a few reads via some Twitter link.

And I agree that Facebook has probably "jumped the shark." When aunts and grandmas dominate a form of hi-tech media, it's about to be left behind.