Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?

Re:Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit? by lvs on Sunday October 09, 2016 @03:46PM (#12673023)

Twitter is a cheap way to get response quotes for an article without asking anyone any questions. It's gotten so ridiculous that some news "content" is just a series of embedded Tweets. Serious news organizations should band together and restrain themselves from this silly practice. It violates one of the most important rules of interviewing, which is to know who the source is and what her biases might be so that the quote can be presented appropriately.

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Re:Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit? by ghaff on Sunday October 09, 2016 @03:50PM (#12673057)

There's a lot of lazy journalism looking for a quote, any quote, because they're required to have one in a story they're writing.

This isn't new. When I was an analyst, some reporters would call me for a quote about something. There were times when I didn't have anything to say because I didn't know anything about said thing. But some would pester me for a quote anyway so they didn't have to give someone else a call.

Twitter does seem to have become a particular crutch though.

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Re:Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit? by lvs on Sunday October 09, 2016 @06:52PM (#12674019)

The BBC was one of the most egregious pioneers in soliciting meaningless viewer responses in the pre-social media era. They would go so far as to kill 30+ seconds of airtime to soliciting/demanding "participatory" viewer responses that were invariably inane. On the plus side, at least it led to some good satire [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQnd5ilKx2Y

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Re:Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit? by dredmorbius on Monday October 10, 2016 @07:43AM (#12676467)

Auntie Beeb's insistence on such complete drivel has killed all the joy and interest. I find it utterly unlistenable much the time.

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