Chie Elliott looks into the relationship between journalists that use Twitter and the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) results for their respective titles in this post.
“Media people are using Twitter as an instrument for sharing and crowdsourcing, for networking and live-reporting. A journalist with a popular blog or social media presence can only be positive for the publication’s brand. If Twitter is a waste of work time, time has never been so well wasted. Furthermore, if a journalist is creating content while simultaneously publicising the content carrier, isn’t that doing two jobs for the price of one?”
via The Media Blog: Are journalists who tweet value for money?.
Perhaps I’m missing something, but I still can’t see any value in Twitter for journalists. I’ve scanned dozens of Twitter postings and all I’ve come across is either people saying they are about to have a cup of coffee/ pick up their dry cleaning/go to Tesco, or commenting on the weather or how rubbish some politician or celebrity is. I mean, come on. Are we really interested in this?
In all the hype about Twitter in some sections of the media, what’s often conveniently skipped over is that Tweets are limited to 140 characters. Now, what on earth can you say of real news value in such few words?
Twitter will end up being a valid sourse for journalists. It’s simply a case of knowing who to follow.
For example, our local weekly, The Rotherham Advertiser, picked up a Tweet from ex-Dragon’s Den “Dragon” Rachel Elnaugh, which linked to her blog and her negative eexperience of the town (http://racheleelnaugh.blogspot.com/2009/10/dismal-rotherham.html), which they then turned into a 2 page exclusive.
It’s a small example, but as Twitter grows and its users become more diverse, I see canny journos using it to their advantage.