Business Report’s compassionate “digital editor” (DE) asked me if I’d like something called a “tweet hook”. “Yes that sounds nice… what can I do with it?” It seems I could use it to set up a Twitter account and then “tweet”.
“Well, on reflection that doesn’t sound one bit nice, so no thanks.”
Well, the DE was very kind, he didn’t mention anything about Luddites, just said in a way that didn’t sound one bit ageist: “That’s okay, maybe think about it… most of our older journalists aren’t very interested in it.”
On the issue of “to tweet or not to tweet”, I am not persuaded by some opponents of the practice, who argue it represents banality taken to an horrendous extreme.
I sometimes think you can say something fundamentally useful, interesting and entertaining in 140 letters. Or rather, I think that there is at least as much chance of saying something interesting in 140 letters as there is of saying it in 450 words, which is the average length of a news story, or 100 type-written pages, which is the average length of an academic thesis.
It is probably even possible to condense the entire contents of the Bible into a tweet. It is not disdain that keeps me from the world of tweets; it is, on the one hand, a complete inability to think and write in two distinct lengths.
If I were younger, I’m sure I could adapt; but I’m not, and I can’t or at least I suspect that the cost of adapting would be considerable. On the other hand, I fear that if I got into the world of tweets I would spend my life there, trawling through what probably is 95 percent banality, much as 95 percent of the e-mails I receive add nothing to my life but create something that needs a response even if it is just to press the delete button.
And I also fear that if I did take the hook then before long my editor would be expecting me to tweet constant updates on whatever story I was following, in addition to writing more considered news pieces as well as very considered features.
Apparently some people can do that. I would find it extremely difficult to try and see the big picture at the same time as writing a very tiny picture.
Without wanting to get ahead of my lowly station as a print media journalist, it would seem to me to be rather like the manager of the Olympic team saying to Oscar Pistorius: “Well while you’re over in London at the Olympics would you not also consider doing the long jump for us?”
Talking of the Olympics, it is of course that obsession with speed and beating the clock that is forcing me to contemplate this “to tweet or not to tweet” issue.
I had to do something similar four years ago when I decided to get a cellphone. I finally realised I had no choice but to get a cellphone because everyone else had a cellphone and the presumption that I had a cellphone, when I didn’t have one, was beginning to make my life difficult.
I now have a cellphone and a Mac Air with a 3G thingy, which means I can communicate easily and work speedily wherever I am.
This is, of course, good news. Except to the extent that it is now assumed that I will work speedily from wherever I am.
And, this might not be the most appropriate remark for a daily journalist to make, but I’m increasingly uncertain about what benefit there is to having a piece of information one nano-second before the next person. I can understand the pressure Pistorius endures, but for me it does seem the more I speed up to save time the less time I have. So I probably won’t have time for tweeting.
