The Press are Listening in on Twitter

Categories: MicroMedia, Social MediaPosted on December 14th, 2007

Yesterday, I was contacted by a member of the press who was writing a story, she asked for elaboration on my 140 character tweet (the maximum number of characters that twitter allows per message). If you remember my pebble theory, you shouldn’t be surprised, I think blogging is moving towards surfing or even boating.

Normally, press will contact press office of an Analyst firm, where they will redirect and refer to the right analyst depending on the topic, but in this case, journalists who cover a beat are starting to follow specific individuals in order to glean nuggets and different opinions for their balanced and fair stories. For these savvy journalists, is it safe to say their job is getting easier as information flies about?

Because ideas and news spread faster on MicroBlogging networks, journalists can move faster, keep their finger on the pulse of their industry and rapidly contact individuals for perspectives. I’m not the only one to notice this, as savvy journalists like David Cohn are getting wind of this instant chat room.

So just be mindful that tweets are public (and let’s not fool ourselves, the private ones aren’t really that secure) that these bite sized opinions can generate into something much larger, seen far beyond your twitter network.

Things are moving faster, smaller, but should we also stop ask, is faster really better?

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 5:13 am and is filed under MicroMedia, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

[...] The Press are Listening in on Twitter [...]

Posted by Microblogging: segnalazioni del 14.12.07 | Microblogging.it on December 14th, 2007 at 2:56 pm

Jeremiah - While increasingly newspapers and specifically individual reporters and editors are taking to Twitter, I have maintained through posts on my blog that it is not happening often nor fast enough. Although I have yet to read “as said on Twitter,” I think savvy reporters are mining Twitter for story ideas and trends and in the process building stronger connections with readers and potential readers and that, I think is a good thing.

Posted by Yoni Greenbaum on December 14th, 2007 at 3:34 pm

savvy journalists? Avoiding the ‘press office’, and circumventing the bureaucracy, are all default requirements for any journalist, otherwise they are just press release playbacks. Nothing savvy about it, it’s a prerequisite.

Posted by Christopher Coulter on December 14th, 2007 at 4:02 pm

Press is moving faster and faster into the use of Twitter institutionally as well. My last add on twitter.com/imwiththepress brought up the number of users to 120. There’s no way it’s exhaustive.