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I know I’m not the first to say this, but Twitter is definitely helping to kill traditional media. Like you, I’ve heard this sentiment for months. But a few days ago, I got my first taste of Twitter’s ability to beat the crap out of traditional media.
I grew up in Binghamton, NY, and until Friday, we weren’t really famous for anything (does being “Carousel Capital of the World” count?).
Naturally, as soon as I first heard about Friday’s tragedy, I immediately clicked over to CNN and The Press & Sun Bulletin for the latest news. Then something strange happened: I grew insanely frustrated by the inability of these sources to provide me with up-to-date information.
It’s true. Gen Y is so impatient that the top news source isn’t good enough. [Insert "When I was your age" anecdote here]
Then it hit me: Twitter! Someone will be talking about this. Sure enough, I started following @BreakingNews and searching “Binghamton” tweets, and it kept me more up to speed than listening to a police radio. It took CNN and PSB nearly an hour to catch up to Twitter.
This experience, tied with my undying love for New York Magazine’s Media Deathwatch, made me wonder, “why would anyone go to the news for information?” Granted, there’s the whole accountability and accuracy factor, but aren’t we used to taking things with a grain of salt, anyway?
What do you think Twitter is going to do to traditional media? How can traditional media harnass its power so they don’t become irrelevant?
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Comments
04.08.09
Saying that Twitter will replace traditional media is like saying that McDonalds will replace The Four Seasons. Both provide different products for different purposes.
Fast food is tasty and quick, but that's about it. Going to a fine restaurant provides an entire dining experience, along with food that has more subtlety.
Twitter is great for quick news. Traditional media is better for in depth stories, which are researched more thoroughly.
The question will not be "Can traditional media survive". It will be "How many individual parts of traditional media will survive?" We may see a move to a few national newspapers, with small local sections inserted inside, because each local area can only support a few reporters. We may see a rise in freelance journalists. Perhaps, in the far future, reporting may be done by artificially intelligent search engines that scour the networks for information. Who knows what the future will bring?
One thing is sure. It won’t be boring!
04.08.09
You've made excellent points, Scott! You made me think back and realize that even after I got my quick fix from Twitter, I was on NYT and CNN later that night for the developed stories. You are exactly right by hinting that Twitter might be excellent for sensationalism, but when it comes down to it, you can't use Twitter as the Splenda of journalism (although it is important to note that not many people, especially of my generation, would bother to follow-up on news).
I don't think these new social media platforms will entirely replace traditional media, but it certainly calls for a fast remix and revamp from the old content providers in order to stay relevant. This shift in focus will require journalists to become more cunning, to dig deeper and to create even more well-crafted stories. Basically, stop chasing the sensation so much (because Twitter and others WILL beat you), and stick to the old journalistic principles of serving the public as watchdogs by investigating and reporting from beginning to end. This tactic, combined with the integration of new media platforms, would help to save traditional media outlets.
Thank you so much for your comment. Your words were delightfully thought-provoking.
04.08.09
Twitter is not going to ever really completely replace traditional media. Like Scott said, traditional media is important: in depth news coverage is necessary to provide detailed, unbiased information about what's going on around the world. Twitter might give you news snippets, short bits of information, or headlines -- but it can never give you the full story or picture. Twitter will compliment traditional media, but can never replace it.
I think the "traditional" media, though, is changing. We're going to see more and more of it online and print journalism is not going to be viable for much longer.
04.08.09
I've yet to finds much use for twitter in the news department, and don't think twitter is going to replace traditional media. Traditional media will change and adapt and though it may on the surface look different than it does now it will still be traditional media.
Twitter's use is limited as far as investigative journalism goes, extremely limited, but if your into sound bites sure, Twitter might win there.
I loved the twitter from this afternoon, the fire department
tweeted: “person dangling from the woodrow wilson bridge water rescue assignment dispatched.” the real investigation of course won't come from twitter.
04.08.09
I disagree with this completely because for once it is actually traditional media that has been able to grasp twitter better than the public. Websites take a long time to update and usually want a well written and of course complete story, that's obvious. Twitter is the exact opposite of thorough but its strength lies in being able to watch news unfold in real time. Traditional media has actually embraced this and if you follow any of the large ones you'll see them tweeting away furiously especially during breaking news events. For example, the gunman shooting in the civic center was covered by a local paper using Twitter. The Hudson plane crash was Twitter's shining moment. A user uploaded a photo via twitpic and it spread like wildfire throughout twitter. It was big media; however, that kept all of us updated on the event throughout the day.
There's another reason why I disagree with this and that's because this time I think it is traditional media that is encouraging the average person to join twitter. If you've watched CNN or FoxNews they refer to twitter constantly throughout their programming and it often seems to me like their admiration for twitter is more than it even deserves.
It makes sense that Big Media is welcoming Twitter warmly. These companies got burned with Facebook and can't afford to make that mistake again. Facebook's huge user base has actually proven difficult to build features that benefit media companies without ruining the user experience. So instead of having some great integration with local and national news services we have the fan page. The fan page has never been able to drive significant traffic to other sites and though a fan page is nice it's not going to help a large media organization meet their budget.
The first time around it was Facebook's large user base that attracted celebrities and media organizations. This time around it is the celebrities like Shaq, Britney Spears, and Ashton Kutcher as well as the CNN's, WSJ's, NYtimes, Fox's of the world who are on Twitter and attracting an enormous amount of users daily.
CNN btw has the most followers with over 850k and is predicted to be the first account with over 1m followers.
04.09.09
@ Olivia & @ Rikin - After re-reading my post, I could see how it could seem like I was insinuating that Twitter would kill traditional media outlets. What I mean by "Twitter: Another Nail in Traditional Media's Coffin" was: "Twitter is Helping to Revamp How the Average American Consumes His/Her News." I never meant to imply that the NYT will be going under; what I meant was that we are beyond the days of the morning paper and the 5:00 news. I should have added a line to clarify that Twitter is part of a larger shift in media consumption.
@ Olivia - I love your thought about Twitter being great for sound bites. As a journalism student, I appreciate how the media's insatiable need for sound bites drives the concept of Twitter news.
@ Rinkin - Good points. You're absolutely right, several traditional media outlets have begun to implement a hybrid manner of communicating the news. My concern is about the average American who is going to trade reading full articles for Twitter. Do you think there's a way to combat this sad laziness?
Thanks to all for your great thoughts! I work in social media marketing, where we treat traditional media like museum pieces: probably worked a long time ago, but no need for it now. It's great to see how "the other side" feels, because I have long felt that people in my industry are being too one-sided.
04.09.09
@Tyler, to be honest I don't know how our consumption behavior will change. But these questions are being played out right now within each newsroom. I wrote a post called the Information Recession about a month ago and would love your feedback.
http://www.rikinontheweb.com/the-information-recession
My main point there was that the newsrooms of large media provide in depth coverage - we in the social sphere simply summarize it into short posts and now 140 characters. It doesn't matter whether media companies exist on TV, Radio, or Print verses digital/online. That's simply a medium shift. The big question being tackled is whether or not this new medium can generate enough revenue to sustain the content that we put out. Right now it's not looking so good.
As a point of disclosure I work for a big newspaper company in NYC so maybe I am a little biased but there are people who think some of us in this industry aren't innovative and stuck in our ways. Nostalgia is not a sustainable business model.
04.09.09
@ Rinkin, it must be very interesting to be working right in the middle of these shifting trends. And you're right, there's definitely a sentiment that newspapers are being pulled kicking and screaming into the future. It's good to hear that there is indeed innovation and progression on that side of the fence. I will definitely check out your blog, thanks for sharing the link.
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