Comments on: The King of Twitter

By: Paula Tripordie

Paula Tripordie — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:06:08 +0000

I hope to see some day on the tweeter “Iran is free” message.

By: Burson-Marsteller: Are sensational topics the only way for journalism to face Twitter’s success? | 222.490 research compile

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 01:05:51 +0000

[...] month, a post by Jeff Jarvis caught my eye. Entitled “The King of Twitter”, the article wonders about the role played by TV channels in the creation and distribution of [...]

By: Are sensational topics the only way for journalism to face Twitter’s success? : DigiSolutions

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 08:05:25 +0000

[...] time ago, a post by Jeff Jarvis caught my eye. Entitled “The King of Twitter”, the article wonders about the role played by TV channels in the creation and distribution of [...]

By: Digital Perspective Blog » Blog Archive » Are sensational topics the only way for journalism to face Twitter’s success?

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:01:49 +0000

[...] time ago, a post by Jeff Jarvis caught my eye. Entitled “The King of Twitter”, the article wonders about the role played by TV channels in the creation and distribution of [...]

By: How has Twitter effected the proliferation of information? | BrandsAmongMany

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:18:38 +0000

[...] of information on Twitter, and how this new medium has changed the game. His analysis is based on this post by Jeff Jarvis which used the spread of the news of Michael Jackson’s death to explore the [...]

By: Paulo Coelho Knows How to Use Social Media Better | Thoughtpick Blog

Paulo Coelho Knows How to Use Social Media Better | Thoughtpick Blog — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:53:40 +0000

[...] (@paulocoelho): Paulo Coelho tweets almost daily, speaking his mind on various topics. He was active during the Iranian crisis especially about his doctor friend who tried to save Neda. He also tweets his daily inspirational [...]

By: The Changing Face of News | WeMedia.com

The Changing Face of News | WeMedia.com — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:01:21 +0000

[...] AP reporter told blogger Jeff Jarvis that she was riding on a bus when someone announced the news of Mr. Jackson’s death to the [...]

By: BM Paris Blog, le blog de Burson-Marsteller France » Archive du blog » Le spectaculaire, la seule issue du journalisme face à Twitter ?

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:50:07 +0000

[...] post de Jeff Jarvis a attiré mon attention le week-end dernier. Intitulé « The King of Twitter », ce billet s’interroge sur le rôle des chaines de télévision dans la création et la [...]

By: The Digital Wing » Blog Archive » From our audience, with our audience, to our audience

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 04:33:21 +0000

[...] of my favourite bloggers – Jeff Jarvis - explains it best in this blog post – I’ve taken the liberty of ripping off one key [...]

By: Vital Communications, Inc. » From Hollywood to Tehran: Sustaining Press in a Busy News Cycle

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:49:05 +0000

[...] There has been some concern that Michael Jackson’s death has pushed Iran out of the media and social media spotlight. [...]

By: acne.care.jenny

acne.care.jenny — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:04:31 +0000

michael jackson is a very very talented person to the point that he rose as a pop icon. he would live forever in our history books and memories…

By: David Brewer

David Brewer — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:51:58 +0000

Agree with Writingprincess. Mainstream, traditional media needs to rethink. Just written a piece about that on Media Helping Media, if anyone is interested.

http://www.mediahelpingmedia.org/content/view/404/1/

David

@helpingmedia

By: Writingprincess

Writingprincess — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:00:28 +0000

I think all this pontificating on Twitter misses a key point: the message is the medium not the other way around. Twitter is just the latest invention in a long march to get news instantaneously. It’s the same as cable news was years ago. However it was dogged journalism – by TMZ.com no less and on-the-ground Iranians – that got the news on M.J. and the election, for Twitter to spread. Without TMZ.com, or independent journalists there would be no news on Twitter. Twitter gave them instant access to their audiences who passed it on. Twitter made mainstream media’s traditional role – getting news first – irrelevant because they can’t compete with niche reporting. EVER. If newsrooms were smart they would go back to investigative journalism, to telling stories instead of spreading the obvious and they may become relevant again.

By: steve baker

steve baker — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:59:03 +0000

Jeff, the question about cable news: Do you watch it because you want to learn, or because you want to learn what the cable news-viewing public is learning? I think the second option still makes sense, though less than it used to. I don’t have the patience or stomach for it.

By: Ólafur Andri Ragnarsson » Blog Archive » The Real-time Web

Ólafur Andri Ragnarsson » Blog Archive » The Real-time Web — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:58:59 +0000

[...] about – now. News travels fast in Twitterworld, but just as thing spread fast, they die fast. BuzzMachine has an interesting input into this discussion. The real time web is not only interesting for what [...]

By: TR @ WSB

TR @ WSB — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:22:13 +0000

Platform Agnostic, it’s important to stop assuming that everybody tweeting and FBing and mobile webbing is under 50 (I see way too many people who even assume they’re all under FORTY). We run a neighborhood-news service – it’s not just a website, it’s also content delivery/aggregation across channels including Twitter and FB, not to mention RSS and F2F – and not only are we 50mumble-mumble (OK, I’m a few months away, but my partner’s a few birthdays past), we know MANY of our “customers,” site participants, etc., are older than we are. And you can’t just say “oh, that’s cause you’re in hyperwired Seattle.” I have contacts who are 80-plus and e-enthusiastic. Meantime, even as a longtime TV news manager/producer, this news event has pretty much capped it for me on TV, able and otherwise. I was one of those nodes who got the TMZ scoop ASAP (from Twitter, as I follow a former local TV co-worker who is now a TMZ muckymuck) and retweeted it to our 3.5K Twitter mininet – then I relentlessly patroled “old media” because I saw some skepticism about the TMZ report and wound up defending it (hoping I wasn’t indirectly sacrificing my credibility) … it took a full hour for ANY old media to confirm … and even past that hour, when LA Times confirmed it, CNN was still saying “we haven’t confirmed it.” They don’t have the sources. That was the most damning thing to me. It’s still all about the sources, whether you’re a node or a news service, and they didn’t have the goods. Next time I’m not even turning the TV on. Luckily this happened going into a weekend, so I am guessing TV will finally wring the last out of it by tomorrow.

By: myarthritispain58

myarthritispain58 — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:36:47 +0000

Michael Jackson is my favorite pop artist ever since i was a child. He is truly the King of Pop and i am saddened by this news.

By: PlatformAgnosticJournalist

PlatformAgnosticJournalist — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:30:11 +0000

One question: where did the Twitterers find out about Michael Jackson’s death. Unless it was Twittered from the ambulance or by Mr. Jackson’s doctor, I’m guessing they were twittering what they heard via TMZ. That’s not exactly a traditional news outlet, I understand. However, if all the news organizations with trained journalists go the way of the Pony Express … do we really think that the news will be delivered, analyzed, investigated thoroughly, and re-analyzed well enough to be a true public service. You mention the fizzling attention span of the Twitterers. Do we want that same attention span applied to, say, health care reform, nuclear weapons development in rogue nations, your city council’s budget increase, global warming and other important issues? I think Jeff’s right that the traditional media need to wake up to an evolving role — but I actually think it’s the long-standing, always-needed role of watchdog. Work the beat, break the news and keep digging. Explain what it means to people. The steps we need to skip, given our reduced resources and the lack of interest from the audience, is the “blather.” TV does this constantly. I’m so sick of the Jackson retrospectives at this point, but I’m more sick of the man-on-the-street reaction pieces on cable, in print, everywhere. What a waste of limited resources of the places that have trained journalists. The old “local reax” piece is dead for traditional media. Twitter, Facebook, online forums on your news web sites, etc., they own that trade space. Link to that and move on to more important work. On the Jackson story, let’s find out more about regular of prescription drugs, oversight of doctors providing excessive prescriptions and other issues that might actually impact people long after the Jackson buzz subsides. Journalists at newspapers and TV stations and cable networks need to exploit these new tools, but not try to replicate them or copy-cat the things they do best. These social-networking tools are outstanding intelligence never before available at this level, in real time. That’s all great data to inform reporting and to give editors and decision makers an idea what the audience is thinking and what people are talking about. Of course, they need to be a little more cautious about applying what’s hot on Twitter to the rest of their audience. Print newspaper audiences and even cable TV news audiences skew way older than the demo on Twitter and Facebook. So, saying the world is abuzz about Iran may or may not be true. The people of the world under age 50 may be abuzz about Iran. Not sure we can so easily attribute that to the entire population and in particular the portion of the population still reading and watching our products (meaning our CUSTOMERS).

By: Jay Shepherd

Jay Shepherd — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:37:45 +0000

Thanks for the link, Jeff. Big fan of WWGD and BuzzMachine. As you can see from The Client Revolution, we’re trying to prove you wrong that lawyers can’t get Googley. (As for PR: forget about it!) It won’t be easy, and they’ll be a lot of kicking and screaming, but eventually lawyers and law firms will have no choice. It will be innovate or evaporate.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:35:26 +0000

It seems to me that not only are journalists are playing new roles, but other people are deciding what is newsworthy, like Wendy says. This is similar to the issue with Digg, I think–the tyranny of the super-active Digg users. That doesn’t really renew my faith in the new Internet journalistic voices, but in the process it does.

By: martin king

martin king — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:48:51 +0000

One problem that news orgainsations must come to terms with is that they no longer own and control news sources – ie their own reporters. These days the public often play the role of reporters – we live in an increasingly “senseable” society. What used to be a news crew can now exist in your pocket – phone, video, camera, computer, communications etc.

Lets not forget that journalists aren’t reporters.

My analysis is that the role of journalists remains similar it’s just that the sources and technology used have changed.

“curating, vetting, adding context, adding comment, seeking information, filling out the story, correcting misinformation” – isn’t this what good journalists always did but using public sources and media.

A major difference is that almost anyone has the capability to do this now – how do journalists distinguish themselves?

By: Wendy Parker

Wendy Parker — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:25:26 +0000

A few questions that aren’t being asked in all the flutter over who got the “scoop” about Michael Jackson’s death, Twitter, new roles for the media, etc.:

Should news organizations with dwindling newsroom staffs, news holes and aspirations for what they cover spend all this energy to pursue a story like this? Especially as they jettison their local arts and culture writers?

By: zerdost

zerdost — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:25:15 +0000

No hard feelings, but I think you are forgetting one of the main aspects of journalism: fact-checking!

Once the rumor about Jackson’s ‘deatch’ I made some screenshots from several big media’s websites (CNN, BBC, Guardian, LA Times). They all have either the LA Times or TMZ as a unique or a pair of sources.

The only bigger news channel paying attention to the sensitivity of the news was al Jazeera. According to them Michael Jackson ‘dies’ (26/06 01:45).
It’s really sad, but news corporations already bury you before once’s soul reaches heaven or the headlines the audience.

By: Jackson death was twittered, texted and Facebooked | SMS messaging mobile marketing Blog

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:12:32 +0000

[...] Jeff Jarvis himself tweeted the moment he heard of the death: He noted that Iran’s spiritual leader [...]

By: Der neue Zeitungsjunge heißt Twitter | Björn Sievers

Der neue Zeitungsjunge heißt Twitter | Björn Sievers — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 06:18:38 +0000

[...] Heute geht das so: “Certainly the Jackson news spread quickly via Twitter. TMZ.com got the news first and it spread from tweet to retweet and then it spread beyond the web as each of those Twitterers acted as a node in a real-life network. An AP reporter told me she was riding on a bus when someone came on and announced the news to all the passengers – that person was a node, the bus the network – and then everyone on the bus, she said, took out their smart phones and spread the news farther. The live, ubquitous, mobile web is an incredible distribution channel for news.” [...]