I’ve noticed recently that a number of articles in the mainstream media revolve around what people are saying on Twitter.
I settle into any particular article before the journalist announces that “Twitter went into meltdown”, or “it created a Twitter storm”.
Two articles over the weekend (about the only two I read) proved my point.
The first was from the Fremantle versus Hawthorn game on Friday night: a game I cared little about but the headline sounded interesting: Hawthorn vs Fremantle, talking points from AFL preliminary final.
“Worth a look” I thought.
The second paragraph of the article ends with ‘Social media agreed’ before giving us screen shots of a number of tweets from nobody in particular.
A paragraph later – which was about a lout in the crowd – was concluded with ‘The spectator was widely condemned on social media’.
A string of more tweets.
Further down the article we are treated to tweets about the umpiring before this announcement: ‘Even Shane Warne didn’t like what he was seeing’.
No. There was a screenshot of his tweet.
Truly pathetic journalism.
The second article was more up my ally: Is it aliens? NASA sends space fans into frenzy with news of a “major announcement”.
As with the football article it turned out to be little more than collection of tweets from a bunch of nobodies. How’s this one, for example:
https://twitter.com/sally_monster/status/647609878505127936
Wow! Can’t believe that our mainstream media even bothered with that.
I’ve only picked two articles from the weekend but it’s a trend I’m seeing more and more in the media – even in political articles. Has anybody else noticed?
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