Categories: Articles

Twitter Doesn't Do Everything Well

Can Twitter replace newspaper and magazine articles?

Jeff Jarvis over at BuzzMachine has an excellent post about Twitter and its ability to deliver the news titled, The article as luxury or byproduct. Jarvis’ main point is focused on the idea that because we now have a connected world that is increasingly mobile and allows information to travel in real-time, the concept of news has shifted from a product to a process. In the Blog post, he says: "they [articles] are no longer necessary for every event. They were a necessary form for newspapers and news shows but not the free flow, the never-starting, never-ending stream of digital. Sometimes, a quick update is sufficient; other times a collection of videos can do the trick. Other times, articles are good." It’s an interesting concept for those who play in media to tinker with. Think about it this way: in a traditional platform (say newspapers and magazines), the news is delivered in a product (beginning, middle and end). The product has a handful of players (it’s mostly an Editor and the reporter with some help from the copy desk). In a world that is connected through new media platforms (like Twitter) everything changes.

Twitters turns the news (and information) upside-down.

In a flurry of 140-characters at a time, news is now delivered by the people it’s happening to or by those who are watching it unfold before their eyes. It’s happening from multiple "reporters" who are all bringing their own perspectives and biases to the situation. This is only complicated by how the public gets this news. The public must be following the right people and be able to filter this information in a way that gives it meaning and balance. This isn’t always easy, and as the river of tweets flows, an hour away from a screen might see this news piece come and go. Mathew Ingram over at GigaOm (a former national newspaper journalist) adds his perspective with the Blog post, No, Twitter Is Not a Replacement For Journalism (a post that Jarvis takes opinion with). Twitter is amazingly powerful for reporting something that is happening (and it’s a strong argument for why the news is becoming more of a process and less of a product), but Twitter is amazingly weak in replicating the experience we have when we read an article (something Jarvis states multiple times in his Blog post).

It’s not a zero-sum game.

Why do we feel the need to have one thing replace another? I often say, "everything is ‘with,’ not ‘instead of’." It’s possible that Twitter is the evolution of how news and journalism is sourced, gathered and developed, but it is equally true that delivering depth, perspective and focus will only come from the depth of an article. On top of that, there is a lot of conversation around the power and merit of long-form content in the digital channels as well (see: “Smart editorial, smart readers, and smart ad solutions”: Slate makes a case for long-form on the web from the Nieman Journalism Lab). It’s clear that the online world offers an opportunity for all types of news, journalism, articles and stories to flourish.

There are things that Twitter and YouTube do extremely well, and there are many other things that it doesn’t do well at all.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.