17 January 2011

Was Tunisia a Twitter Revolution?

Twitter will be televised.
Have you seen any of the news coverage of the events in Tunisia? Where is the press getting all this, only from Twitter? Have they been fact-checking any of these updates? Do they need to fact-check the updates they see on Twitter? Do journalists look into other eyewitness reports? Or are they just reporting them verbatim because they’re on Twitter?



And, doesn’t it seem like their only source for breaking news these days is Twitter? How many stories did you see on television in the past week that used Twitter as at least one of the information sources? Are you even watching televised news any more?


Is this such a bad thing? Can you think of the last time you heard about breaking news first on any other source? Sully on the Hudson? Michael Jackson’s death? The latest earthquake?

Doesn’t it seem like newspeople are investigating fewer leads? Are they just turning to Twitter because they’re lazy? Do they explore their curiosities about anything else? Have they missed any important local stories because they’re too busy watching their Twitter stream?

Who is gathering your news? Should we be gathering it for ourselves? From Twitter? All these interrogatives leave me wondering, “will I see you on the ‘morrow, on the Web?”

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