JOURNALISM 392W - Knee Jerk Tweeting

CNN’s political ticker may be my favorite news entity to follow on twitter. One thing I like about it is that it really enables me to make rash judgments about beat style news without considering implications or delving into the issue at all.

I’m actually being serious. For example today the political ticker tweeted “Gingrich advice to GOP: Hammer foodstamps.” Instantly I was furious. I thought, that goddam Newt Gingrch always making life harder for those who already have it tough. Somebody oughta…etc. That was all before I even clicked on the article link, which I won’t get into.

My point is that twitter serves as an excellent outlet for me to sit down and stop being so academic all the time. Look, in a journalism class we all boast about how we like a good in depth story that really delves into an issue. If that’s true, that’s great, but honestly I can’t think of a single time I’ve picked up the Times and read more than two articles (unless I’m really trying). I spend so much time analyzing the hell out of everything in class all day that it can be really refreshing for me to sit down in front of twitter and experience knee jerk reactions to incomplete stories. If you don’t know what I’m talking about try it sometime. I think you’ll agree.

JORUNALISM 392W - New people on twitter

Since I already have a twitter, this was kind of interesting. I was already following most of the people or groups I thought would be fun, but I added a few more, so here it goes.

The first person I added was Simon Pegg. He popped up as a verified account on people to follow sidebar, and he's hilarious, so I went for it. For those of you who don't know, he's an actor who usually portrays some ridiculous or funny British man.

Next I realized I'm not following any sports teams, or personalities, and I thought that was a bit remiss so I added the Major League Soccer Insider, the NY Red Bulls, and the NY Mets. I tried to find a legit looking NY Giants page, but had no luck. If anybody wants to recommend one I'd appreciate it.

Then I found Wil Wheaton. I had to follow him. He was the actor who portrayed Wesley Crusher in Star Trek the Next Generation. I had heard he had sort of a cult following, and since I'm already following Brent Spiner (Data) and Leonard Nimoy (Spock from the original series) I figured I'd add him to that list.

Next I followed The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert. No explanation required.

After that I followed Twitter, because I figured that might come in handy if there are any major changes or additions to the site.

Lastly I added Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer. They're two of my favorite anchors, and I have a sort of CNN trend going now because I already subscribe to CNNBRK, which is there breaking news page.

Most of these are for entertainment purposes, with the exception of the sports ones and the last two. Those I'll use for news. Following celebrities can be a mixed bag. Some of them are twitter crazy, others never use it, and still others use it so sporadically that it can be really frustrating to follow them. Wil Wheaton and Simon Pegg look like that won't be an issue.