Ever notice when an event features a speaker, that Twitter and other tools of the statusphere become random quote generators? It happened during the inaugural address, the VMAs and the Emmy’s, it even happened during BlogWorld – the list goes on. And it makes perfect sense – event speakers typically focus on presenting some type of takeaway for attendees. In turn, attendees capture the quote, re-broadcast it (hopefully with attribution) and add some context, like a hashtag.
If you’ve ever live-tweeted or updated a status from an event, you understand the human compulsion for quoting a speaker; they’re an authority for that event. But in my opinion, broadcasting quotes makes you part of a group I heard radio host Hugh Hewitt refer to as “incidental journalists.” You’re interested in sharing the news of what’s happening, but through the words of event authorities. Surprise, that makes you a journalist.
Before I moved to Minneapolis, I worked in Central Maine as a beat reporter at the Bangor Daily News, a family-owned newspaper with about 68,000 circulation (at the time). As you might imagine, quotes were everything. I covered a lot (read: hundreds) of municipal council meetings, and even when they weren’t particularly exciting, council members, residents or business owners would offer up quotes that encapsulated the issue being debated. Those quotes often became the meat of a story because they came from real people.
Now that I work in marketing, I’m fascinated when I attend an event – like a monthly Social Media Breakfast presentation (though I missed yesterday’s event) – and I see people reporting great quotes. On laptops or mobile devices, they type quotes into Twitter, and instantly, they’re publishing to their circulations (follower lists) in the hundreds and thousands. While the traditional news model may be changing, journalism isn’t going anywhere.
“I think pickles are cucumbers that sold out. They sold their soul to the devil, and the devil was dill.” – Mitch Hedberg
Filed under: social media, Uncategorized, bangor daily news, journalism, journalist, quotes, Twitter
Nice post, Tony.
Your piece reminds me of the value… and difficulty… with quotes. It’s now a cliche to say, “my quote was was taken out of context.” (Defining context as everything that adds color to the words: the emotional state of the speaker and audience, the setting, the sophistication-level of the discussion, etc.) But when the whole audience is the journalist does this group, in sum, provide greater context by allowing an ambitious reader to ‘connect-the-tweets?’ Or does the inherent limitation of 140 characters increase the risk of a quote being misinterpreted due to lack of context? Guessing both of these scenarios have truth to them.
Thanks again for the post. Looking forward to the next.
Joe,
You bring up a great point, which I didn’t dive too deep into in the post. With group-as-journalist, I see one big value is that you have multiple voices agreeing – or disagreeing – on what the important takeaways are. When I was reporter, it was up to me to pick what was important and readers were limited to what I came away with. So the reader (now a follower of tweets) can see some validation if many people are posting the same quote, or arguing with someone who posted a different quote.
But to your question, 140 characters does sometimes create pockets for misinterpretation with quotes, I think. The really great soundbites will rise to the top and sometimes that’s enough to get the gist. But sometimes you need more to truly get it.