3 ms·

News content is being reported directly on Twitter because the internet spoiled consumers into not having to pay for reporting. The online advertising model eff

News content is being reported directly on Twitter because the internet spoiled consumers into not having to pay for reporting. The online advertising model effectively did "defund" publications by forcing them to write low-quality content that people would click on instead of paying for.

WilTimSon 6y ago
It's also being reported there because it's an insanely fast way to reach people. Instead of them having to check the news organization's main page to see if anything happened, they can subscribe to their account on Twitter, turn on notifications and get it the moment it breaks. Granted, Twitter is still a horrible place for long-form news (which is why it links to the full articles) and an even worse one for discussions. Which is why a different platform for instant updates could be beneficial, since news will have to adapt anyway.
- jobigoud 6y ago
  > Instead of them having to check the news organization's main page to see if anything happened, they can subscribe to their account on Twitter, turn on notifications and get it the moment it breaks. If only there was a really simple way to syndicate all this content that all websites could follow and multiple clients could consume...
  - WilTimSon 6y ago
    There is but, realistically, people have moved away from it. Getting someone to try a new thing is hard. Getting someone to go back to an old thing once they're hooked on a new one is harder.
- save_ferris 6y ago
  The instantaneous nature of the internet is one of the single biggest contributors to the low-quality nature of news content today, and in my opinion, needs to be rethought. The reason is that publications no longer have the benefit of the doubt when they publish something wrong. If a story with a malicious source runs, that publication can't argue that they were duped by a bad source. The community will automatically accuse them of pushing fake news, regardless of whether or not it was intentional. The media no longer has any benefit of the doubt due to the intense political opposition. Also contributing to this is a publication's desire to be first to run a breaking story. This creates a scenario where a publisher has to decide between waiting for additional sourcing to corroborate a big story or risking losing out to a competitor who may run the story first. It's one of the main reasons that I try not to actively support Twitter-driven journalism and instead put my journalism dollars towards publications that do long-form writing that takes time and patience to produce. The late-breaking Twitter world is just too often a Kobayashi Maru situation for publications.

WilTimSon 6y ago

It's also being reported there because it's an insanely fast way to reach people. Instead of them having to check the news organization's main page to see if anything happened, they can subscribe to their account on Twitter, turn on notifications and get it the moment it breaks. Granted, Twitter is still a horrible place for long-form news (which is why it links to the full articles) and an even worse one for discussions. Which is why a different platform for instant updates could be beneficial, since news will have to adapt anyway.

jobigoud 6y ago
> Instead of them having to check the news organization's main page to see if anything happened, they can subscribe to their account on Twitter, turn on notifications and get it the moment it breaks. If only there was a really simple way to syndicate all this content that all websites could follow and multiple clients could consume...
- WilTimSon 6y ago
  There is but, realistically, people have moved away from it. Getting someone to try a new thing is hard. Getting someone to go back to an old thing once they're hooked on a new one is harder.
save_ferris 6y ago
The instantaneous nature of the internet is one of the single biggest contributors to the low-quality nature of news content today, and in my opinion, needs to be rethought. The reason is that publications no longer have the benefit of the doubt when they publish something wrong. If a story with a malicious source runs, that publication can't argue that they were duped by a bad source. The community will automatically accuse them of pushing fake news, regardless of whether or not it was intentional. The media no longer has any benefit of the doubt due to the intense political opposition. Also contributing to this is a publication's desire to be first to run a breaking story. This creates a scenario where a publisher has to decide between waiting for additional sourcing to corroborate a big story or risking losing out to a competitor who may run the story first. It's one of the main reasons that I try not to actively support Twitter-driven journalism and instead put my journalism dollars towards publications that do long-form writing that takes time and patience to produce. The late-breaking Twitter world is just too often a Kobayashi Maru situation for publications.