By Carlos Miller
Miami Herald Pulitzer Prize winner Leonard Pitts Jr. recently penned a column denouncing people who use Twitter as having nothing significant to say.
Not surprisingly, Pitts was denounced by hundreds of Tweeters as having nothing significant to say.
In fact, the most significant part of Pitts’ column was what he didn’t say: That he is a perfect example of why newspapers are dying.
Instead of utilizing Twitter as a means to increase readership, Pitts chose to write it off as a passing fad that regretfully has seeped into levels as high as the White House Administration.
Pitts also has demonstrated an unfavorable view towards bloggers, writing them off as amateurish and not worthy of publication, according to an interview with Miami blogger Random Pixels.
Most blogs strike me as bits of unpolished, undigested thought, something you dash off as opposed to something you really write.
This is the same pompous attitude displayed by many newspapers during the internet explosion of the late 1990s, which is why many newspapers are now clawing to survive.
It shouldn’t be surprising that the Herald neglected to advance or cover Bar Camp Miami last month, even though they were actually in attendance of the web-related conference.
I am far from a tech geek, but I saw the news value in it when I covered it for Miami Beach 411. It turns out, the organizers didn’t need the Herald to promote the event because they had Twitter.
If Pitts had done his research, he would have learned that Twitter has served many functions, including spreading the word when an American photographer and his translator were arrested last year in Egypt for photographing an anti-government protest.
On April 10, 2008, James Buck, a graduate journalism student at UC Berkeley, and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested in Egypt for photographing an anti-government protest. On his way to the police station Buck used his mobile phone to send the message “Arrested” to his 48 “followers” on Twitter. Those contacted UC Berkeley, the US Embassy in Cairo, and a number of press organizations on his behalf. Buck was able to send updates about his condition to his “followers” while being detained. He was released the next day from the Mahalla jail after the college hired a lawyer for him.
Had Buck waited until the mainstream decided to write a story on his arrest, he would still be in jail.
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I am a multimedia journalist who has been fighting a lengthy legal battle after having photographed Miami police against their wishes in Feb. 2007. Please help the fight by donating to my Legal Defense Fund in the top left sidebar. To keep updated on the latest articles, join my networks at Facebook, Twitter and Friendfeed.
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16 responses so far ↓
1 Rick // Mar 10, 2009 at 6:37 PM
Leonard Pitts is but one journalist at one newspaper. I think it’s truly unfair and inaccurate to brand the entire industry as technologically backward because of Pitts’ attitude.
I also think that that the Sun-Sentinel’s Blog of the Day feature is a great example of one newspaper taking a very proactive stance towards new media and, in particular, bloggers. They also use Twitter, I believe. You also should check out their sister paper, the Chicago Tribune, as an even better example of integrating blogging into mainstream media.
Yeah, they’ve been slow on the uptake, but to say that there is this pervasive “pompous” attitude toward new media in the industry is a bit exaggerated and unfair, in my opinion.
There really are people out there working in journalism that “get it.”
.
2 Carlos Miller // Mar 10, 2009 at 6:44 PM
You’re right, Rick.
I could have mentioned the Sentinel’s initiative or Rick Sanchez’s immersion in Twitter or even the fact that WPLG Local 10 just started following my Twitter account and they are in fact following more than 1,300 Tweeters.
But I just wanted to keep it simple and use Pitts as an example of why the media has dragged its feet when it comes to new media innovations.
And it’s a little disappointing because he has always been one of my favorite writers at the Herald.
3 Edwin // Mar 10, 2009 at 7:12 PM
Like you mentioned, the Sun Sentinel is making an effort to reach ouch with new technologies. It makes a big difference when a company is almost entirely staffed by people under thirty years old. It’s just a shame they will all probably be laid off.
4 Scott // Mar 10, 2009 at 7:48 PM
Twitter = Betamax. I’ll be glad when everyone gets over the absurd hype. It’s a yahoo chatroom circa 1996, people! Only with less features. And a more unfriendly user interface.
5 Edwin // Mar 10, 2009 at 9:18 PM
Twitter may be the thing to hate that’s in but it doesn’t make it useless. I’ve been using twitter since the closed beta started in July of 2006. It not the same as other chat rooms and IRC because you don’t have to be there in real time to get the message. There is a history there that can be read at your leisure. And unlike other chat rooms you are not forced to read what you don’t want. Yes I know IRC and most others have blocking capabilities but the difference here is that you are forced to block people by default while in twitter you have to allow them to talk to you first.
Anyways, don’t forget the Sun Sentinel is having a twitter meetup this Thursday in Ft. Lauderdale. Even if you don’t like twitter, it should be a great way to connect with those in our local media that we love to criticize and endlessly talk about. http://tinyurl.com/byzw3h
6 Ms Calabaza // Mar 10, 2009 at 10:26 PM
Great post Carlos.
7 Carlos Miller // Mar 11, 2009 at 5:41 AM
Scott,
But even the Betamax was groundbreaking at the time.
Edwin,
Thanks for the info. It’s a little ironic that the Twitter Meetup is being promoted on Facebook.
Ms C,
Thanks!
8 Scott // Mar 11, 2009 at 7:51 AM
“But even the Betamax was groundbreaking at the time.”
I use Betamax because it’s the classic example of one technology losing out to another and disappearing out of the world. But it’s a bad analogy: there isn’t anything groundbreaking about twitter at all. It’s certainly not a mind-blowing technology, and certainly not superior (we can just focus on the tool itself; no point in bringing up how often their site has technical issues) to other social networking tools.
Yes, you can read a history, and yes, you choose who you want to follow, but to me it seems a ridiculous waste of time, not simply because of the 140 character limit. In fact, that’s probably the least annoying thing about twitter.
With only having the contacts your interested in on your list of people to follow, I found sifting through histories to be painful in that you’re looking at page after page of simply text, all of it jumbled with multiple people talking independently while you’re working to piece together conversations. Extra work for the user. I mean, the basic thread concept doesn’t even exist!
There are easier, smarter, better tools, imo for social networking. And eventually, those tools will go the way of VHS, to be replaced by some greater technology. For now, those tools (like FB) provide me with more than enough social networking satisfaction.
9 John // Mar 11, 2009 at 8:36 AM
I agree with Scott. Twitter seems overhyped.
I can do the same thing Twitter does by changing my status on Facebook with more functionality to boot.
That being said, the argument “not all newpapers are technologically arrogant/outdated” is a distinction without a difference. Most all of them are. The younger employees get it and will go the route of Carlos by becoming freelancers.
As a consumer of information that suits me fine. I want the fewest filters and conflicts of interest as possible with the greatest interactivity possible. FU Herald. FU Sun Sentinel. Don’t need you anymore. Classifieds? Craigslist.
10 Edwin // Mar 11, 2009 at 11:17 AM
Maybe I am being nitpicky here but even the analogy of Twitter = betamax isn’t apt because betamax lost to it’s competitor, VHS. On the other hand, almost every competitor to twitter has trouble maintaining a robust community unlike twitter.
Pounce is gone (http://pownce.com/), Jaiku is struggling (http://www.jaiku.com/), and plurk isn’t fairing any better (http://www.plurk.com/). The best competitor that Twitter has at the moment is the newly updated Facebook.
11 Scott // Mar 11, 2009 at 11:45 AM
Edwin,
Pounce? Jaiku? Plurk? Who? To me, those don’t even register a blip on the social networking radar. They’re simply irrelevant. In my analogy (again, a poor one because Twitter isn’t technologically superior) VHS is Facebook and/or even Myspace.
I think what’s happened with Twitter is that people began to take it seriously when it isn’t. People hopped all over it as something more than a friends/family tool. Another way to connect with the masses. On the front page of the their site, Twitter is defined as “a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” It has since morphed into just a mess of text that is too time-consuming, too difficult to follow unless I’m on there 24/7. FB, on the other hand, I can log in and quickly see in a matter of a couple of minutes what I want and catch up quickly with individual friends or groups or threaded conversations. AND, I can follow the networks I want with people incorporating their blogs.
I simply have no interest in trying to follow any family/friends on twitter when the interface is utter crap.
Like John said, you can do the same thing on FB with more functionality to boot.
12 Carlos Miller // Mar 11, 2009 at 11:48 AM
The word from the San Francisco tech community, which is where these things usually start, is that Friendfeed will eventually replace Twitter.
http://thomashawk.com/2009/02/is-twitter-afraid-of-friendfeed.html
13 Edwin // Mar 11, 2009 at 3:27 PM
Scott,
Just because it means nothing to you personally, doesn’t mean something isn’t worth it.
Carlos,
Agreed with FriendFeed. There are just too many web 2.0 services to stay powerful on their own. In the end Twitter will end up being nothing more than a protocol or API to power a part of FriendFeed.
If you’re using Twitter via the website you’re doing it wrong. Use twitter for what it does best, as a backbone for a more robust application with a better UI. Something like TweetGrid, TweetDeck, Digsby, Twitterfon, Tweetie, twhirl, etc.
One of the presentations at BarCamp was from the founder of the DiSo project and a board member of the OpenID people. The problem we have right now is too much fragmentation and not enough interoperability. The combination of FriendFeed and OpenID will hopefully unite all the services into one. Then with all the data easily accessible you will start seeing more applications that will help in controlling the data.
14 Scott // Mar 11, 2009 at 3:36 PM
Edwin,
Agreed. For some people (like yourself) it is worth it, obviously. I just have a really hard time seeing the value when better tools exist.
15 Edwin // Mar 11, 2009 at 5:25 PM
Maybe it’s that the face value doesn’t show it’s true value. The raw data value alone would make anyone geek out. You can get a real time pulse from anywhere in the world using the hashtags. I’ve seen it in action and it just blows my mind with what you gain with all this information if it is parsed, and presented correctly.
16 Kai Lo // Mar 12, 2009 at 5:18 PM
Pitts is dumb to assume Twitter is just a fad that will soon fade away. Twitter is growing exponentially.
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