Twitter in Journalism, and Other Absurdities.

What bothers me about the media and their subservient devotees is the reliance on social media in general, and their dependency on Twitter as a source of news in particular. Their focus upon a trite epigram here and there is in inverse proportion to their focus on reality, leaving honesty, truth and ethical journalism in a process of diminishing returns.

The act of reporting on someone’s “tweet” reached a sunburn’s pitch this past election. Recall without irony the moment when the Clinton campaign asserted that a cartoon frog was a symbol of an increasing white supremacy within the Trump movement to evoke the glaring absurdities we’re dealing with here. The propagandist who wrote the piece cited a Daily Beast article wherein the author quoted “a prominent white supremacist”, whom turned out to be no more than a Twitter troll syphoning his satisfaction from those credulous enough to take tweets and Twitter feeds too seriously. We can forgive the propagandists because they are only doing their job, and the troll because he is exposing dupes. But for journalists and others employed in the dissemination of truth and the denying of ignorance, we bloody well harden our hearts.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper went to task on Kelly-Anne Conway for Trump’s tweeting in an interview designed to make Melania Trump’s plight against online bullying look ridiculous. But in a rebuke, Conway showed that CNN’s journalism was the real running joke here, and it consistently lacks a punchline.

“I hate to break it to the political class or even the media, but most of what's on Twitter is not about politics or journalism.”

Conway was exactly right. But worse, CNN was exactly wrong, and continues to be so. In the numerous attempts to use tweets as evidence of Donald Trump’s temperament—as evidence of anything—temperament was the last thing they could find. The only behavior evidenced here is that a man was tweeting, an act which consists of using one or two thumbs to type, and a feat that can be accomplished while in various states of repose. What there is no evidence of is mood, character, or disposition.

Distilling a frame of mind from a tweet, a post, a status update, an OP is guesswork at best, and projection at worst. Unless explicitly stated, temperament and other feelings are completely absent from any observation, especially when that observation is one of words on a screen. Despite this fact, the media, and (oh lord) the “Twitterati” is unable to look away from their Twitter feeds long enough to notice any reality, let alone to observe it honestly. The world goes on without them, and so will real journalism.

When did a tweet become something more than a passing thought?

Watch as the media and its acolytes pass pathetically through someone’s timeline for signs of hypocrisy and other piffle, as if once a tweet was set in stone, he who tweeted it must stand by it for as long as he lives. Observe the superstitious continue to believe that once they have imagined the lowest motives or intentions in another user's tweets, that they have identified the correct ones. Look at those who cannot be bothered to observe the world try to sell us on their Twitter fantasies. Then, finally, observe us laugh in response.

Thank you for reading,

LesMis

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

CNN’s Anderson Cooper went to task on Kelly-Anne Conway for Trump’s tweeting in an interview designed to make Melania Trump’s plight against online bullying look ridiculous. But in a rebuke, Conway showed that CNN’s journalism was the real running joke here, and it consistently lacks a punchline.

I used to respect Anderson Cooper.

Can anyone point me to where I may watch this interview online?

originally posted by: ColdWisdom
a reply to: LesMisanthrope

CNN’s Anderson Cooper went to task on Kelly-Anne Conway for Trump’s tweeting in an interview designed to make Melania Trump’s plight against online bullying look ridiculous. But in a rebuke, Conway showed that CNN’s journalism was the real running joke here, and it consistently lacks a punchline.

I used to respect Anderson Cooper.

Can anyone point me to where I may watch this interview online?

You can watch the video here.

We already see cord cutting hurting tv ratings.

Over the next four years the MSM is going to see ratings plummet as they've burned their trust with the American people and alternative writers will continue to soar.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Quite honestly Les, my respect for you aside (which is high, mind you) I don't see this doing anything at all to slow down the apparatchik media in America. Their bias is now exposed, as was their collusion with the DNC, though nothing will come of it.

Complacency will destroy any society and America is fully complacent. In America there is, right now, people tearing up towns that agreed with them politically because they're not mature enough to exercise their democratic right to vote. They have been given a narrative which they have bought into, and are now acting out through that narrative all their confused emotions. I believe that, if asked, about 4% of those protesters would have a 'valid' reason for their dissent - the others would simply point you back to their constructed media narrative.

The biggest problem is, without establishment help, how do you expose the media to those who rely on it for their weak world view? Without a HUGE establishment movement to expose the media nothing can be done, not realistically. The media covers their bases and hides behind speculation for the rest of their phoney reporting.

How do we, as a society, pin down these utter maniacs in the media and silence them once and for all? Spreading their lies doesn't seem to do much. Their approval ratings are HORRIFICALLY low and yet the protesters are still marching based on what they've read through THE BLOODY MEDIA........

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Thanks for the link but CNN edited Mrs. Conway's retorts out of the clip. The bastards.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope
Don't rule out Twitter so harshly yet. I would have no material in my WW3 threads without it, or at the very least wait a few more days for the action of battle to show up on youtube. It is stupid to make headlines out of simple comments of opinion though.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

check infowars, they have been keeping tabs of Mrs Conways back and forth with CNN, and highlight the good parts that they prefer to edit out. She can keep them on their toes, no doubt about it.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

I can't tell you how many online news articles I've seen from the biggest news sites that make a whole story out of something someone said on Reddit/twitter/facebook. I think it's an unfortunate result of the 24 hour news cycle; they start to run out of things to talk about so we're flooded with non-newsworthy crap to fill in the gaps.

Also interesting to note when news (propagandist) shows have the running stream of random twitter posts in relation to their headlines. So easily skewed to further their agendas and promote a sense that "everyone thinks X you need to think X too"

a reply to: Kalixi

Exactly right. Some articles, and even news shows, go to Twitter to gauge public opinion, as if it was a scientific poll.

So, uh, yea. Journalism's been a joke pretty much since JFK's assassination.