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

Paper: You've got a good point, but I don't think the original poster was referring to, say, the odd Keith Law tweet about risotto. (Although you're right about Olney - those tweets crack me up.) I read #5 as being more akin to an experience I had as a Vikings fan. I followed Judd Zulgad for Vikes news. I unfollowed him because I often had to sift through dozens of tweets about college hockey at the Xcel Center to get to the Vikings stuff. It's his prerogative, of course, and the Vikings stuff was worth it, but there were other writers out there who provide the news without the noise.

(And Judd, if you're on here and reading this, nothing personal. I followed you in the first place because I like your work. Not that you should care what some random asshole on the internet thinks.)

 

And no, I'm not saying you should never retweet anything you wouldn't tweet yourself. Or that reporters shouldn't engage or have conversations on Twitter.

Just saying there are (and should be) consequences for any reporter who passes along bad information, knowingly or not. That applies to all mediums, social media or otherwise. The whole point of the job is not to do that.

 

[quote author=dooley_womack1]
So you're really OK with just passing along any old shit on your Twitter and not taking any responsibility?[/quote]
You got it! Exactly what I'm saying. I've written in every post it's important to use discretion and not just pass along anything...such as the example of the kid reporter in Kansas saying Mack Brown will be fired.

The RT of a bad scoop is saying, "Check out what this person said."

You writing a story says it's information you acquired from someone you trust and you have reason to believe it's not bull.

[quote author=playthrough]
You're losing that RT battle, JPsT. And "Twitter respect" might be the lamest thing I've heard so far in the young year.[/quote]
Losing? I'm genuinely interesting in the position the majority seem to hold. That's fine if you don't like the way Dietsch phrased it, but as the original article points out, your reputation among social media users can have implications on the real world.

[quote author=buckweaver]
Just saying there are (and should be) consequences for any reporter who passes along bad information, knowingly or not. That applies to all mediums, social media or otherwise. The whole point of the job is not to do that.[/quote]
Interesting. What should the consequence be for a reporter who got burned by a trusted source?

Another example? Another example. If I'm a Houston Rockets beat writer, I'm at the Toyota Center last night covering Rockets-Hawks. I go through the typical night, tweet (wisely) during the game and file all my copy. As I'm briskly on my way out, hoping to catch the tail end of some NYE festivities, I notice ESPN's Marc Stein is tweeting the Mavericks are signing Yi Jianlian, according to his sources.

It's of interest to my followers, as the Mavs are division rivals of the team I cover, and it's from Stein who lives in Dallas and might be the most well sourced guy when it comes to the Mavs. I click RT.

If Jianlian doesn't join the Mavs this season, why is that on me? So far, I've heard "because your followers might think you reported that, not Marc Stein."

 

To use your Rockets/Mavs example, what is your retweet of Marc Stein if not "information you acquired from someone you trust"? Stein's a credible reporter working for a big media outlet.

If Stein continues to pass along information that turns out to be wrong ... well, you would soon stop trusting him, wouldn't you? So why wouldn't your retweets have implications on your credibility, too?

 

That's the part where he lost me. It happens all the time... some 'thing' in culture catches fire... then it's like, "MONETIZE IT, MONETIZE IT, MONETIZE IT!!!" But when people start to make money off it... it loses its luster. I see very few people making a living off Twitter.

He talks about Erin Andrews and her popularity on Twitter. How does he think people got to know Erin? She didn't spring organically out of Twitter.

Call me old fashioned, but I still see a bunch of people sitting on their asses watching TV.

 

Some people definitely did "spring organically out of Twitter." Darren Rovell and Peter Casey, for instance. Adrian Wojnarowski is an NBA celebrity now, because he's generally on Twitter breaking the biggest NBA stories. Before Twitter, I thought of him as the angry NBA columnist for Yahoo. Now, I think of him as the go-to reporter for the league.

 

Rovell sprung from Twitter? Working for CNBC doesn't help?

Twitter is likely, in the long run, to hurt Rovell, if he keeps at it.

 

Rovell's fame quintupled. He doesn't get a show of his own if Twitter doesn't exist.

 

He's a sizeable prick on Twitter.

 

I think it's a valid point to suggest that using Erin Andrews as example of how many people will click if you tweet is maybe not the best, most realistic inspiration for what "every writer/journalist" should expect.

 

And he was on ESPN before jumping to CNBC. He was a long, long way from being an unknown prior to Twitter.