Rocky Mountain News "tweets" dead boy's funeral, now (thankfully) being savaged

Re: Rocky Mountain News "tweets" dead boy's funeral, now (thankfully) being sava

others should write ... I did send a reply to his, but not sure that I'll hear back. he doesn't strike me as a back-and-forth guy here. kind of defensive, so guess maybe this was his baby. but would be interested to hear what others get back from him, actually.
again, I respect him for writing back and defending his position. I just happen to think he's wrong.

 

(iirc, he writes some sort of blog on the weekends ... saturday or sunday, I forget which. maybe this will be this week's topic ... )

 

Whack! Hammer, meet head of nail.

 

What the fuck is it?

 

Re: Rocky Mountain News "tweets" dead boy's funeral, now (thankfully) being sava

No offense. But you have not suffered until you have lost a young child.

I hope you NEVER suffer like that in life.

 

My understanding is that Twitter is like Facebook for the ADD crowd.

Basically, if you want people to know that you're currently posting on SportsJournalists.com, then you can do that on Twitter.

I don't understand it either.

 

It's for people who think they're so important that the world needs constant updates of what they're doing. Apparently 140 words (I thought it was characters) worth.

Like constant facebook status updates.

 

Re: Rocky Mountain News "tweets" dead boy's funeral, now (thankfully) being sava

Point well taken, Simon. I understand. And my deepest sympathies to those who have suffered in that way.

I only meant that this discussion of journalism issues, judgment issues, technological issues, etc., is in no way invalidated by some prerequisite perspective of parents vs. non-parents, or parents who have lost a child vs. those who have not.

Obviously, each of our experiences lends us a different point of view. But parental experience is not an important factor in this particular discussion, and to paint the picture that way (again; because we've been through that many times on this board) is unfair.

 

The operative word in Twitter is twit.

 

It's in the hole!

 

having read the first page and the last three, this is classic example of traditional media glomming onto new media without having any idea of its purpose or if there's value to it. isn't the first, won't be the last in this climate.

"hey, we read about it on poynter; hey someone wonk at an online think tank does it. hey, my 20-year-old son mentioned it. we should do it, too."

i'm not against new media being used on traditional media websites (i'm all for it when it's useful for the reader), but constantly acting like lemmings isn't helping. too often, it's done just to try and impress poynter or the wonk without thinking about the reader.

 

There is a difference between what a new tool starts out intending to be and what it can be or comes to be. Yeah, there are plenty of people who just use Twitter to tell people what they are having for lunch, which is pretty much worthless, but that's not all that utility is good for. It's like saying since porn sites probably far outnumber anything else online, the Internet is good for nothing except that.

Aside from telling people what they're doing this exact moment, many also use Twitter to share news, whether it be news they read (a link) or news they just witnessed (five cars just flipped over on the interstate; avoid at all costs). Some even use it as a marketplace of ideas, trading short posts like a back-and-forth conversation, except it's a conversation with everyone who is following your Twitter feed, not just the particular person you're talking to, so you open up the discussion. Both of those functions would be useful for news organizations in building and reaching their audience. And Twitter plays well with mobile devices (probably the main reason for its popularity), so you are not tied to a computer. And it sends your news to your audience rather than than having to rely on them to come to your site to find the news. It doesn't replace many of the things you do as a journalist, but it's a handy tool to have for the right situations, which this funeral was not.