Let's hold off on that Pulitzer for Twitter

Twitter is many things. It is a neighborhood stoop for people to gossip. It is an outlet for movie studios, TV networks, athletes and actors to promote themselves. It is a platform for journalists, including this one, to get their stories out to the masses.

What Twitter is not, is a news organization. It does not employ reporters. It does not have news bureaus around the world. Maybe one day it will, but for now it is a global bulletin board. That's why it is so frustrating when people, particularly veteran journalists give Twitter itself credit for breaking big stories.

The latest example of this was the news that the United States had killed Osama bin Laden. On May 1, the Obama White House sent word to networks and newspapers that a major story was breaking and that the president would be addressing the nation soon. News organizations scrambled to figure out what was up and it wasn't long before Keith Urbahn, a former Defense Department staffer in the Bush administration, tweeted that he was hearing that Bin Laden had been killed. He also acknowledged it was a rumor.

None of this is intended to take issue with Urbahn and his speculative tweet. In a pre-Twitter era, he might have called up a reporter and passed on the information. Twitter cuts out the middle man. There is nothing wrong with that.

Now, if Urbahn had been wrong, the world would have shrugged and moved on. However, if CNN, the Los Angeles Times or the New York Times had tweeted a Bin Laden dead rumor that didn't pan out, their credibility would have been shattered and they would have been rightly raked over the coals for sloppy journalism.

In another example of overstating Twitter's role in the Bin Laden coverage, much was made after the news of Bin Laden's death broke about tweets from Sohaib Athar, a Pakistani resident who kept posting notes about all the helicopter activity near where he lived. What he was hearing, it turns out, was U.S. forces helicoptering in and out of Abbottabad. He had no idea that was what was going on and said as much in interviews after the raid and the discovery of his tweets.

On his Sunday CNN show "Reliable Sources" looking at the media, host Howard Kurtz said of Athar: "I love the fact that this guy scoops the entire world."

He did not scoop the entire world. He heard noise and posted something on Twitter about it. He didn't know what the noise was so how did he scoop the world? Even he acknowledged as much in an interview with NBC.

If Twitter had been around in November 1963 and a Dallas resident tweeted, "just heard gunshots" would we say that person broke the story of the JFK assassination?

This is not meant to dismiss Twitter. It is a powerful site with tremendous potential. I use it both professionally and personally. It is a great tool for reporters, for promoting work and even for sourcing.

It is the people filing to Twitter -- for free -- who are providing the value for the site. People use Twitter to spread news, Twitter doesn't break news. On paper it may seem like Twitter makes everyone a reporter, but there has to be a recognition that it is not a level playing field between people who use Twitter and news outlets who have professional reputations at stake every time they tweet.

Perhaps Twitter will soon create its own version of a wire service. For now though, it is a corner bar for the world to tell everyone what happened to them that day. Sometimes the drunk sitting next to you at the bar is right on the money, and other times he doesn't know what the heck he's talking about.

-- Joe Flint

 

 

Comments

[George Gecewicz]

"It is the people filing to Twitter -- for free -- who are providing the value for the site."

What do you think is providing the value for "professional" journalism content? You're silly if you think that journalists can do a better job at reporting on something than any random blogger, tweeter, whatever; people coming to read the "professional" content is the only thing that gives that value, too.

"On paper it may seem like Twitter makes everyone a reporter, but there has to be a recognition that it is not a level playing field between people who use Twitter and news outlets who have professional reputations at stake every time they tweet."

Everyone is a reporter, and it is a level playing field. Trying to add this phony layer of professionalism and building on the idea that journalists for news outlets are better or more substantial than other types of reporters is the whole reason this house-of-cards, nonsense "reputation" stuff is there in the first place!

The way news is "supposed" to work, with "news outlets" and "journalists" like yourself, is fragile and has been since the first blogs went live. It's time to move on from the old ways and advance to the more robust, dispersed news feeding that is inevitable (and happening now). I think people at news outlets like this site are just afraid to realize that they were once big fish in a small pond, and now they're slowly becoming less relevant. Oh well; move on.

[Jennifer Carra]

Well the more people communicate with each other the more complex things will get. They may get good and rough. But may settle in the end for all good.

[Carole Fielding]

Perhaps Twitter will soon create its own version of a wire service. For now though, it is a corner bar for the world to tell everyone what happened to them that day. Sometimes the drunk sitting next to you at the bar is right on the money, and other times he doesn't know what the heck he's talking about.

Tough talk from the same org who did a smear job on Ina Garten.

[Robert]

Keith Urbahn is Donald Rumsfeld's chief of staff. Had he got the story wrong it would have been a huge credibility dent, to both him and his boss.

You also discount that 'reputation' has a wider meaning than just journalistic credibility. Twitter users who post reliable and interesting content have a measurable 'reputation' - the number of followers. People who publish nonsense, false memes and fabricated gossip will not gain followers the way a serious journlist will (or rather, they *might* gain followers, but not followers with any influence or credibility themselves). Social media analysts have become very good at analysing 'credibility' and 'authority' based on the number and type of follwers they have on Twitter. Reputation is reputation is reputation. You're not a special class of person because you write under a masthead with a Gothic typeface. Not anymore.

For fun, flip the issue completely on its head. How about we say that all the LA Times has been doing all these years is building up a stock of credibility that it could turn into Twitter followers. The founders of the paper had the foresight to begin this process of credibilty raising and authority boosting before Twitter was invented. But now Twitter does exist, those same activities are open to people without access to a printing press.

[Don]

Twitter has played a valuable role in breaking news around the world, but as much as I love Twitter I think people have gone a little overboard especially in praising Athar. As you said he didn't even know what was going on he was just complaining about the noise.

Now he has some 86,000 plus followers up from 750 and what will they get? Mundane tweets about Pakistan and nothing earth shattering in all likelihood.

[TK]

Journalists do a lot more than just spot reporting, like Mr. @ReallyVirtual did when he commented on the helicopters flying over his head. Anyone can say "Hey, look, something is happening over there." That doesn't make him/her a journalist. Reporters actually report. They call people. They confirm facts. They dig up facts. And they also use their professional discretion to choose how best to present those facts.

So, in conclusion: I can make an omelette, but that doesn't make me a chef.

[George Gecewicz]

@TK no doubt that a lot of tweets and blogs don't really do a great job as far as real journalism, but I'm just trying to make it clear that a lot of them do and that journalism is not something that can really be separated and limited to a "profession"; in fact, a lot of blogs, podcasts, and people on twitter do a *much* better job at unbiased, actual journalism and reporting than "news outlets"

[Amy]

Great article Joe! Even Michelle would approve. - Chamara