Twitter Changing The Face of Campaign Reporting
There’s an article by Noam Cohen of The New York Times today that reports how microblogging– especially using Twitter– is becoming commmonplace on the campaign trail amongst a growing number of reporters.
A couple of weeks ago, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly was seen shoving a Barack Obama staffer who was blocking O’Reilly from yelling at Obama. After bill tried shoving the man out of the way “to uphold the constitution,” reporter John Dickerson took out his Blackberry and Twittered, “NASHUA: Just saw Bill O’reily misbehaving at Obama rallly. Shoving Obama staffer.” That was the first reporting of what became a pretty significant story all over the political reporting spectrum.
Twitter is kind of a goof in many ways, and it’s not being used to relay hard news, but microblogging is gaining in popularity and Twitter is the top choice of many who are increasingly discovering its simplicity and usefulness. The guys at TechCrunch seem to love it and they even gave it a 2007 Crunchie Award for best mobile startup.
Even aging candidate Ron Paul has jumped on the Twitterwagon, using the service to give updates about his campaign to supporters.
With a 140 character limit for each entry, Twitter is actually taking reporters back to the old days of telegraph, where a character limit also often applied. This can lead to some clipped statements but also a level of conciseness that can be somewhat appealing and often comes off rather snarky.
At this point, the Twittered comments are more personal than professional, with Ana Marie Cox using a Twitter post to report John McCain having to go to the bathroom to talk to Mike Huckabee on the phone. “If you only Twittered and only read Twitters that would probably be a bad thing,” said Cox.
Via Noam Cohen at The New York Times
Technorati Tags: microblogging, presidential campaign, twitter
