I've been one for about 4 hours now. I expected to feel more ashamed about it but...I really don't. Over the past few months I told many people that I wouldn't join Twitter. Honestly, I'm not quite sure I ever believed myself. I was hoping for the Twitter hype to die down and then feel comfortable with my refusal. Then, two things changed my mind: the Iran election drama and the social networking password controversy in Bozeman.
We've known for a while how a site like Twitter can enable "citizen journalists" to spread information quickly. I, like many others, was able to see it as a dissemination tool. But I looked at it as a divider of sorts. It divided the "citizen journalists" from the "real ones." You could get little bits of information from people on the scene of a breaking story. But if you wanted the best "coverage" you should look to traditional media. In many ways, I still believe that. But with the two recent events I mentioned above...I saw the flaws in my argument. When Iran cracked down on media coverage, Twitter became vital pathway of information dissemination. The traditional media were looking to Twitter (among others) for the best coverage. As for the Bozeman drama (quick background: a reporter at KBZK uncovered the fact that the city was asking job applicants to disclose login information...including passwords...on applications. A worldwide brouhaha ensued...and the city dropped the policy days later in embarrassment) a BIG part of the story was how the Twitterverse was exploding with criticism. As someone very interested in the issue, I was shut out of a lot of the back and forth....simply because I wasn't on Twitter.
As a personal social networking site, I'm still skeptical of Twitter. But as a journalist, I now realize it's a valuable tool to have at my disposal. I would hate to be involved in a major breaking story and not have Twitter in my coverage arsenal.
So I joined. I feel good about it. I'm going to try to keep it more professional than personal.
My Twitter handle is LincolnGraves. Check it out and become a follower.
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