4 ms·
Journalists like twitter because it allows them to “build a personal brand” i.e. they are less beholden to the publication/broadcaster which they are employed.
by tomgp 6y ago
Journalists like twitter because it allows them to “build a personal brand” i.e. they are less beholden to the publication/broadcaster which they are employed. It allows them a direct line to their audience to promote their work and news orgs see value in employing journalists with large follower counts. I’ve worked for a couple of large news orgs over the years and just by virtue of including them in my Twitter bio And being followed by journo friends my follower count increased to the high hundred/ low thousands— I barely tweet at all.
A side effect of all this is that journalists (and others with high follower counts) have a very distorted idea of how Twitter works and feels for most people and tend to ascribe more importance to it than perhaps it deserves. Thing is it’s kind of a self fulfilling prophecy.
Ps. I haven’t actually read the linked article so apologies if I’m repeating its contents
- pentae 6y agoThe premise of the article is that they pay attention to Twitter as a source for stories. Not to 'build a personal brand'
- coffeefirst 6y agoTrue but you can't talk about one without the other. Young journalists have to be active on it in order to establish themselves. But by being active they're overexposed to it. In theory, you can both be there and keep it in perspective: to know it's a dirty pub for angry people and robots to yell at each other, that doesn't represent the real world. But that's hard, and not everyone can do it long-term, especially when more and more people around you spend a lot of time in the same fun house.