Sky News journalists debate the value of Twitter

Picked this up off Twitter. A Sky News field producer (@fieldproducer) debates the value of Twitter with political correspondent, Niall Paterson. My thoughts in italics.

• fieldproducer: spoken to a lot of journalists who don't get twitter. They should read this http://tinyurl.com/kvsmr3 (via @journalistFeed)

[I bore myself wondering why people don't understand that Twitter has some value to the working journalist. Not least because journalists use it all the time. I mean either they're crazy pretending it's useful to look cool or something or it is actually useful.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Read the twitter link you posted - what utter truistic strawman drivel! "twitter is what you make it"!!

[This was perhaps the weakest line in the piece although the actual unfriendly 140 char quote is: "it is only as useful as the person who is using it wants it to be."]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer The article's author is equally guilty of the sneering of which he accuses the MSM! The evangelical zeal with which people

[A hark back to bloggers vs journalists. Of course there's no need to sneer on either side really apart from the fact that both commentators in the media and bloggers know that a good old sneer makes more interesting copy than sober assessments. I'm sure some twitterers link to, read, watch and appreciate Sky News coverage. In a few lines Niall's about to sort of maybe recognise the point that it might possibly be a useful, if limited, tool to do journalism.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer greet every latest web 2.0 innovation is nothing new. give it a couple of mins and there'll be another emerging

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer tech/app we'll be asked to integrate into our already busy days. christ, when did you last receive a hand-written letter? how

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer nice did that feel?

[I'm sure there will be another emerging web innovation. Re: letters. Riding a horse is also nice, I've heard, but most people don't use them to get around these days. Receiving a letter is probably more satisfying than it used to be when letter writing was common, precisely because it has become rarer. But it is nice to receive a letter. I don't dispute that.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Plus, has twitter actually made any money yet? best not to slag off the "ailing industry" when this thing isnt profitable.

[As far as we're aware Twitter hasn't made a great deal of money. But Evan Williams, the CEO of Twitter, has form in snatching finance from the jaws of bankruptcy. He co-founded Blogger which almost died in February 2001 because of a lack of funds. Two years later Blogger was bought by Google. We don't know how much money he made from the deal, but I doubt he's poor.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer What % twitter accounts are currently active? of those, how many are spamming??

[The short answer is: we don't know. Because Twitter won't tell us. Tech Cruch estimated 1 million users and 200,000 active users in March 2008. But there's been significant growth in 2009. According to the BBC, Comscore guess there are 45 million users worldwide. It's not the be all and end all of social networking sites - "During May 2009 www.twitter.com ranked as the 38th most visited website in the UK and the fifth most visited social network".]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson ahh, but as journalists we have broken quite a few stories after getting leads from twitter. Profitable or not, bloody useful

[I think this is more like the point. Why is Niall Paterson worried about whether Twitter will make a profit? I think the point about Twitter is not the company but the concept. And as Evan Williams said on Newsnight the other week, if Twitter doesn't make it work, it will be because somebody else will have done it better.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer you make my point for me - it's just another tool. might as well evangelise about the telephone. or more approp. the internet

[So it's the hype that's getting to Niall really (but I think he likes an opportunity to have a rant so he can't complain too much). It's the same sort of thinking that happened with blogging when blogging was new and as a journalist told me for one of my interviews, the hype 'puts people's backs up'. And some of the hype is rather mistaken. See my thoughts on Moldova's Twitter Revolution.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer arent profits important? they are to our employer and the vast majority of journos. and where in the article were T's faults?

[There were no examples of Twitter's faults in the article. But then the blogger doesn't have any obiligation to be fair and balanced. If you want to ask this question, you might ask yourself where in Jackie Ashley's article was there room for the advantages of social networking?]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer i'm sick of faceless webgeeks being so condescending to those who fail to share their unfettered adoration of social network

[Nice line.]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson but it isn't like a telephone is it? It is more like a wire feed. I don't think pofits are important to maj of journos either

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer not talking about you there!!

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson we should spend some of ours on a few drinks and debate this properly rather than in 140 characters!

[Oh so Twitter does not mean the 'end of face to face' communication, then. And people who use social networks do meet in real life.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer tell that to those on More4 or the londonpaper, or the 1000s of regional hacks who've lost their jobs

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson or those at Five

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Great idea! meeting pegler this saturday - fancy it?

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson yeah have DM you

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Indeed. we're all just a bad day away from the dole.

• RT @johnny_phipps @fieldproducer Forgive me 4 putting my oar in, 2 add weight 2 ur POV, look at coverage of GMP raids by @deankirbyMEN

[Dean Kirbky uses #gmpraids to report for the Manchester Evening News. Click on the link for more.]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson check RT of @johnny_phipps tweet, bring it on Patterson!

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Interesting. a rolling tally of arrests? wow. perhaps time would be better spent crafting an easily updateable blog piece

[You can imagine someone a few years ago suggesting a rolling tally of arrests on a blog and someone else saying: 'Wow. Perhaps time would be better spent crafting an easily updateable online piece.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer which could actually tell me what's going on... i'm being a tad facetious, but look at how many followers he has...

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer I'm not saying twitter doesn't have its uses - just that as a journalistic tool it has a number of drawbacks

[Ah. Good point. Twitter is not good for a lot of things. For a start, we've already acknowledged that this debate would be better held over a pint. Twitter doesn't do radio or TV so well. Try using Twitter as an audio editing suite. It won't work. You don't get context and background with Twitter. It's too short. I mean I could go on but the disadvantages of Twitter are pretty obvious aren't they. As a journalist, Twitter's a great tool but it's just one tool.]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson irrespective of the subject matter it is a constant flow of info which you recieve passively in real time.

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Exactly. unverifiable, unadulturated raw data. where's the context? it's just a data dump

[Some tweets are unverfiable. A lot are verifiable. I've verified who a lot of twitterers are in my time. Indeed, Twitter do some of the hard work for you and verify accounts. If you know who you follow then it's much easier to verify what they say. Raw data is pretty useful I'd have thought.]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson but you are a journo your job is to take that info stand it up and put it in context.

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson in short a journo using twitter would have the info faster than someone without.

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer eh? HE'S the hack! This is what journalism has come to? trawling twitter feeds for tips?! i've just phoned the GMP phonebank

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer You know, like we used to. and got twenty times as much info. verifiable info.

[These are just two different aspects of the journalist's job. Journalists have always trawled for tips wherever they come from. Why not use Twitter as well? But then journalists can't spend all their time trawling for tips, because they have to work on those tips by getting hold of more information and reporting the story. But it's not: either, or; it's both.

Or, if you work in a media organisation like Sky, you can afford to have people performing different roles. What does Sky's Twitter Correspondent do? Surely part of her role should be feeding tips to journalists from Twitter? Then the journalist can worry about following the tips up, phoning people and doing all that 'old-fashioned' stuff. Though there's nothing old-fashioned about it in my opinion.]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson we broke the Conrad Murray vid before anybody else, how? I saw it drop on twitter. Wires 20mins & BBC 2hrs after us.
  

[@fieldproducer says he meant to say 'ran' rather than broke.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Your argument would see me spending most of my time standing up twitter tips rather than actually doing my job properly!

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Yep, as a source of links twitter really is useful. but didnt the person who tweeted in fact "break" the story?

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson yes but i'm talking TV here.

[This does the raise issue of what 'breaking news' is in the 21st Century. (But I'm running out of steam.) It's changed a lot is the point. But then as an organisation Sky News like bigging up that they are 'breaking news' - the institutional culture captured by Jon Grip's capitalised tweets.]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson what do you mean standing up twitter tips rather than doing your job??Were you on the day of Speakers resignation?

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer Ah. that old chestnut. if i read something in the papers then do a telly turn before the beeb, am i breaking it?!

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson How do you think we got that first? you guessed it Twitter tip.

• niallpaterson @fieldproducer explain the difference between an rss feed and a twitter feed? both require you to "follow"

[Can't really be bothered but there are some significant differences.]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer and no - we got that story first because our corr read a report of a rumour on twitter...

[Apparently it was a producer not a correspondent]

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer had he been in the HoC rather than in front of his computer, we might have had it sooner. you know, proper legwork!

[Sad fact is that a lot of journalists are stuck behind their desks. Most of them don't want to be.]

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson right let's finish this tomorrow over a pint.

• niallpaterson: @fieldproducer good idea. the one disadvantage of debating in twitter is that i can't punch you

• fieldproducer: @niallpaterson don't you'll end up like http://tinyurl.com/m795r7

• johnny_phipps: @fieldproducer @niallpaterson Your debate brings into question the value of @RuthBarnett http://bit.ly/4CcAx
  

[An interesting point.]