It seems that the future of journalism may be closer than we think. And I’m sorry to say that it has chosen to take the form of a little blue bird.
Twitter, for better or worse (may I submit the latter?), has all but conquered communication as we know it. And so too has it made the seemingly effortless transition to news. But is this really the future of news, in one form or another? I would hardly call Twitter updates (“tweets”, if you will) journalism, but the fact is that many people do use Twitter as an effective resource to “report” events (“Just had a taco for the 1st time! omg sooo good” does not count as an event).
Case in point, the recent fopaux made by President Obama wherein he called a Mr. Kanye West “a jackass”. The remark was made during some casual pre-interview banter between the President and CNBC’s John Harwood, in reference to West storming the stage of the MTV Video Music Awards while Taylor Swift was accepting an award to say that Beyonce deserved it instead. A few of those who heard the remark swiftly (I had too…) went to “tweet” about it. Former White House correspondent Terry Moran was amongst the few, as he tweeted: ” Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a ‘jackass’ for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT’S presidential.” Now, surely this isn’t journalism, not in any traditional sense, but then again it is closer to where journalism is headed than many would like to believe. The fact is, most people can’t think beyond 140 characters-per-thought anyway, or at least they feel terribly inconvenienced if made to.
With news becoming more up-to-the-second all the time, stories can’t always be sprawling with detail. When it comes to news that is happening right now, it needs to be short and to the point, and that’s how people want it. With that said, Twitter is NOT journalism and should never be accepted as a substitute. But the fact remains that Twitter seems to be on to something as it’s popularity has hit the stratosphere rather quickly. Those in the journalism world would be foolish not to take notice.
