It’s OK to be sick and tired of Twitter rants by journalists who don’t understand it.
The same day I posted about Edward Wasserman writing about Twitter without really learning about it, I read another piece from another journalist I respect, Paul Farhi of the Washington Post, writing The Twitter Explosion in the American Journalism Review.
Farhi, to his credit, did a fairly thorough job of researching Twitter by reading about it online and by interviewing journalists who use it. He just didn’t bother, from what I can tell, to learn anything firsthand by actually using it. And his writing revealed his ignorance.
Farhi might have gone a step further than Wasserman or Leonard Pitts by actually registering, possibly as @paulfarhi or @farhipaul. I can’t be sure because neither profile identifies the user’s (and I use that term loosely) occupation or employer or tells us anything about him or provides a photograph or link. Someone who had used Twitter long enough to understand it would have provided a meaningful bio (including identification as a journalist, since he’s writing about Twitter), link and photograph. I suspect from the few people these users are following that both are actually Farhi. (I’m emailing him to inquire and will report back his response and invite him to comment here; AJR does not invite comments on the story.)
Most important, someone who really understood Twitter would have tweeted. @paulfarhi hasn’t tweeted at all. @farhipaul has tweeted one word: “test.” (The tweet came April 29, probably the time frame in which Farhi was working on the AJR story.)
The opening clearly identified Farhi’s original premise:
It’s OK to be sick and tired of Twitter. Heaven knows, it may be the world’s most overhyped technology, the latest in an ever-lengthening list of overhyped technologies and cultural techno-fads stretching back to CB radio.
Then Farhi did some actual reporting that was pretty good that documented much of the value Twitter has for journalists. But this passage betrayed the fact that this reporting was all on the surface and didn’t really involve understanding how Twitter works or is used:
A day before the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriages in the state, the Des Moines Register created its own hashtag, #iagaymarriage. The tag quickly caught on, becoming so popular that competitors like the Gazette in Cedar Rapids wound up tagging their tweets with it.
Clearly this was written by a traditional journalist who counts on controlling content, not by a Twitterer who understands how hashtags work (Farhi also kind of stumbled in his explanation of hashtags, not using the # sign in his illustration). Whoever starts the hashtag, journalist or random tweep, it becomes a tool for organizing conversation, not one newspaper’s conversation or another. A news organization that started a separate hashtag when the community was already using another would fragment the community or, more likely, miss out on the actual conversation.
Still, that mistake came in a fairly long stretch of the story that actually proved the value of Twitter. But unconvinced by his own reporting, Farhi refused to budge from his preconceived notion and finished with more whining about Twitter.
Try this, Mr. Farhi (or any other journalist who’s still whining about Twitter hype): substitute email or telephone or cell phone or laptop computer for every mention of Twitter, positive or negative, in Farhi’s piece. Almost every mention will still be accurate. The truth is all of those tools, like Twitter, can be an annoyance and a waste of time at times, especially if you don’t use them wisely. And a journalist better become proficient in using all of them as well.
One final point: I subscribe to the Washington Post’s email news alerts, so I can learn right away about breaking news from Farhi and his Post colleagues. Twitter scoops them all the time. The only time I find the Post’s alerts helpful is when I’m otherwise occupied and haven’t checked Twitter recently.
I don’t know what gets you so hot under the collar… I thought Farhi’s piece is quite good.
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I’m not hot under the collar, but I can’t respect journalism that’s based in ignorance. You’re welcome to agree with him that Twitter is overhyped. But his reporting documented how useful it is (that part was good). And his reporting (and laughably limited personal use of Twitter) also revealed his ignorance.
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As a student of journalism, I’m kind of happy some of the trad-journalists don’t get it (or use it haphazardly and then find it pointless before they know what’s what). It gives us little fish a chance to thrive in their blind-spots.
I find more breaking stories by browsing what’s trending on twitter and I have secured a few interviews/meetings with people who are way above my level by befriending them on twitter first.
I’m networking with several people in my future Master’s program (including faculty and their contacts); I’m planning a meeting with an award-winning journalist who was recommended to me by a follower; I’m having my CV cleaned up by one of my followers who works in HR; I can easily search public opinion whenever I need starting points in my research; and getting more blog hits because I hook a large audience in 140 characters (like an effective headline). And this is a selective list of benefits.
Although big fish have a reputation-based follower-building advantage, anyone who is interesting and that takes that time to RT great links and tweet meaningfully can also reach a large group of their peers.
I’m far from follower-obsessed (amassing followers for its own sake is rather pointless) but I do believe that connecting with other people in my field and with my interests is very useful.
If twitter-haters read this and don’t change their minds…well, good! To refuse to genuinely explore a tool that may be useful is a self-imposed limitation. Besides, it’s gives twitter supporters something funny to tweet about.
@FierceFab
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[…] 29, 2009 Judging from this story, it appears […]
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Yeah, I’m with the first commenter: I don’t understand at all what has you so hot and bothered here.
As mainstream media pieces about Twitter and journalism go, this is by far and away the best. It is fair, even-handed and well-reported. Not only that, but I would say it’s probably the most PRO-Twitter piece of its ilk I’ve read yet.
Farhi actually does quite a bit of what you dismissively refer to as “actual reporting,” and points out many many examples of how reporters use Twitter every single day. (If he isn’t a Twitter user, it’s all the more impressive really how right he got things.)
Since AJR is written for and about journalists, and since the premise of this piece (see paragraph three) is why Twitter matters to journalists, it shouldn’t surprise you that it focuses so much on how reporters and newsrooms are using and adopting Twitter.
In this vein, you are completely misunderstanding the section on hashtags, which he absolutely accurately describes as a tool to organize conversation around a specific topic or event.
He is hoping the reader can draw from this a broad understanding of how the community uses hashtags. But given his audience and premise, he wisely stays on course and addresses how news organizations are now starting to adopt these Twitter conventions as well.
Farhi isn’t saying news organizations are the only source of hashtags, only that occasionally news organizations have been. In this case, not only did the community rally around that tag, the competition did as well. (By the way, who do you work for again? Hmm…)
You seem to not be able to get past the lede, which (rightly) declares Twitter to be overhyped — and it is. I guess I’d suggest skipping that sentence and focusing on the 40 or so paragraphs that follow it, but that’s just me.
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Let me help you out here and take this conversation away from Twitter, which for some reason generates strong emotional negative reaction. If back in the 1990s a reporter had written and AJR piece about email or cell phones without actually using email or a cell phone, would we excuse that ignorance because he read a lot about it and talked to a few people?
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Well actually, I’m more impressed by this article on Twitter written by a non-Twitter user than I am by this load of codswallop on Twitter by a “big time” Twitter user….
I’m referring to: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1894410_1893837_1894156,00.html which has gems such as Twitter being “as significant and paradigm-shifting as the invention of Morse code, the telephone, radio, television or the personal computer.”
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I really like your point that any piece about Twitter should substitute “cell phone” or “laptop computer” and see whether it is still accurate bvecause “the truth is all of those tools, like Twitter, can be an annoyance and a waste of time at times, especially if you don’t use them wisely.”
The problem, it seems, is that Farhi’s piece stands up to this test and he makes nearly the same point:
That paragraph hints at the “caricature” of Twitter that some truly awful newspaper pieces about Twitter have painted. This is definitely not one of those.
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[…] Yet another anti-Twitter piece written in ignorance, Transforming the Gaz […]
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[…] Yet another anti-Twitter piece written in ignorance […]
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[…] I think writers should learn something about the topics they address. I ripped Leonard Pitts, Paul Farhi, Edward Wasserman and Philip Lee for writing in ignorance about Twitter (could have ripped more, […]
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Twitter is over-hyped, and is largely the domain of the socially retarded and wannabe attention seekers. Whats more lame is that a grown man thinks that this piece of technology (which will fade into obscurity by 2011, mark my words) is a must-have. Let it be what it was designed to be – a haven for tweens and Gen Y morons to chat with D-list celebrities and never-will-be’s.
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Marto, your comment reveals your own ignorance about Twitter, including the fact that it’s only lightly used by tweens and Gen Y (nice that you’ve branded a whole generation as morons). You are welcome to comment and criticize on my blog, but please get your facts straight. And I will not approve future comments that resort to such name-calling.
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Another point, Marto: You may be right that Twitter will flame out by 2011 (I wish I had a buck for everyone who told me in 2008 and ’09 that it would flame out by 2010). But I know this: If it does flame out, I will learn about whatever comes next on Twitter long before you learn about it.
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I agree with Marto that twitter is over hyped. I can fully understand someone like Lance Armstrong (for example) using it to post about activities pertaining to his cycling etc (or letting one of his employees post for him ^^) but who cares what joe public has done, is doing, is going to do (and I mean the mundane, I just went to the WC and now I’m cooking my tea ‘tweets’) – seriously, write a diary or post something interesting. And then what about the fact that people are putting their personal lives online for all and sundry to read, and at times, when referring to others, the personal lives of other people (who maybe (hopefully 😉 don’t use twitter and don’t wish to let people know they’ve just taken a big crap and are now going to cook their supper). I talk from personal experience here with my ex deciding to tweet about a few things that involved me and our daughter and I coincidently read them and ensured she removed them. Twitter should have more controls in place.
And that whole twitter language….
Before you chastise me for not researching it properly I created a twitter account some time ago (when it was just catching on here in Holland) and used it for a while, followed a few people but very quickly found it to be cluttering up, full of crap and a waste of bandwidth. I now hold it in almost the same regard as spam. As a Linux Sys Admin I consider myself reasonably savvy and like to follow new trends (I don’t however own an iPhone or an iPad nor do I desire either…). Personally I can currently only see one useful application of twitter (aside from my aforementioned example of a pro-sporter type person pushing out info, or a politician etc) and that is the ability to put a question out at a specific user group, but hey, giyf – google is my friend too, and has not let me down yet. Luckily I don’t have to use, no one does, but that (obviously) doesn’t stop me having an opinion about it.
Anyway, I guess I’ll just ‘twexit’ and wait for the day that twitter get’s the tweet out of here.
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