Twitter is News, Not Journalism

Maybe that's the point as I read through some more academic posturings about the end of days as a result of the internets. When scholars and Pulitzer prize masthead newspapers cluck about how you can't possibly do journalism on Twitter, this is the point they miss.

Most people read or watch news. News is what effects their daily lives. News is what they also now get from their friends and family through social media outlets. And survey after survey says, they trust the news they get from people the know more than those that they don't.

Twitter helps make that possible.

Case in point last night there was a terrible accident back home in Fayetteville as the arch-rival Springdale football team headed to Harmon Field for I think the 102nd meeting of the Purple Dogs and Red Dogs. The SHS Bulldogs had a bus roll over in a ditch, injuring a couple of players, but resulting in the cancellation of the game.

I knew that in real time at the media reception hosted by the Cotton Bowl here in Arlington. I was able to relay that to media members here, and when my wife called -- who was in Fayetteville -- able to fill her in on details she didn't have. She was able to tell me they game had been rescheduled for today, something that was still in doubt via my sources.

Who was my source? My well constructed Twitter feed of the local newspaper, the local on-line group and the three local TV stations. Each had a piece of the puzzle -- although it wasn't until after the 10 PM casts that I got the details on how the wreck happened and where from the TV stations as they tend to withhold their breaking news until they have given it out on their primary medium (more on that later).

So the news found me and my iPhone. It was the real-time reporting that is rapidly becoming critical for multimedia success.

When I get back home, I'll want to know more and I'll read the long-form articles about what and why and who and how. But if I had not became engaged with the story through the breaking news, would I have really given much time to the follow-up, to the "journalism"?

No. I'd have scanned the headlines and moved on. If time permits later today, I may read those stories on-line before I get back home on Sunday. But my interest is piqued, and I'll pull out my broadsides to read tomorrow night.

The news is the key. Getting it. Reporting it. Engaging the consumers in it. The collective needs to remember that while they worry about journalism.