12.14.2011
Journalists on Twitter
Many editors and professors encourage (strongly) for their journalists to be active on Twitter. However, at the same time, criticize the under-reported and inaccurate information that is often posted on the social media site, not necessarily by journalists. My question is this, in order to further define the distinction between active citizenship and journalism, would journalists be better served just staying off of Twitter?
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When I first joined Twitter, most of the people I followed were sports writers, bloggers and athletes that covered or played hockey. However, because of the fast-paced news environment Twitter provides, I soon found myself following sources running the hockey rumor mill.
I loved getting word of possible trades before the experts broke them, but the bottom line was, more often than not, the deals never came to pass.
Eventually, I became fed up with all of the false information floating around and I unfollowed those feeds that were unwilling to vet information.
My point is, the beauty of Twitter is that users get to choose the content that appears on their news feeds. Some people use it for their daily dose of pop culture, while others look to it for their news.
For the latter camp, people who post misinformation quickly lose legitimacy and followers.
It would be a shame to see credible journalists and writers abandon Twitter, when the system has a way of weeding out the incredible all on its own.
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