Media Credibility Trumps Social Networking

Who has all of the up-to-the-minute news?

The public.. powered by a tiny cartoon birdie we like to call twitter.

Read this.

Twitter has drastically changed the media landscape and gardened it to level the playing field. Ladies and gentlemen, that means we are now all journalists. However, we only get 140 characters instead of column inches. Who do you think told CNN and MSNBC about the elections in Iran and the military coup in Honduras? The tweets, obvi (sorority short hand for obviously).

Okay, let's stop with the jokes. We are not all journalists. The difference between us and journalists is that the news we tweet is simply comment and responsive while media outlets are objective.

Twitter has put the news into our hands, and unlike my previous blog about media consumption, this is about the gift and the curse twitter is for journalists, the media consumers twitter filter, the charge twitter has put on the media, the twitter effect on PR and the media and ultimately the triumphant platform the media still has over the twitter phenomenon.

The unsuspecting journalist finds her/himself in a rose garden, and picks the most beautiful rose of them all. And as s/he reaches over to pick it, they are plucked by the thorn - aye, twitter.

Twitter the gift - Twitter can be used as a tool by journalists to keep up with trends in the public eye, follow certain people who are heavily involved in their particular area of niche journalism whether it be consumer or travel, etc, and its also the future in media consumption and journalists need to stay current to stay competitive.
Twitter the curse - Over this past weekend, apparently Jeff Goldblum fell off a cliff in New Zealand and Harrison Ford fell off his yacht. Hmm, maybe not so much considering Jeff was on the Colbert Report Tuesday. People can tweet whatever they want, and if it gets enough retweets it becomes news? Twitter has the potential to become one huge rumor mill. Unfortunatly, the media has to deal with this. In regards to breaking stories, like Michael Jackson dying, people were calling his death as soon as they found out he was hospitalized. The media has to be the source that dispells these rumors and gives the facts. Fortunately for the media, twitter limits users to 140 characters in one tweet which only leaves room for headlines, no details that can really inundate a story and make it difficult to tell fact from fiction. It encourages consumers to actually follow up the stories, which leads me to..

The media consumers twitter filter! With 37 million members tweeting away at their every twinkling, twitterers have to scrutinize these tweets and acknowledge their subjectivity and lack of credibility before they become twitter twips and retweet twat that's not true. The internet is saturated enough as it is, but now there's a central hub that funnels all that information into one tweet at a time. It is more important now than ever that the media consumer be wary and informed of what's being said and where to get objective factual news.

With that being said, the media is now charged with an even stronger duty of objectivity to inform the intelligent media consumer. This needs to be done for two reasons aside from the ethical ones. As long as the media stays objective and factual, it retains its credibility and more importantly the trust of its consumers. In this business, credibility is all you have. Also, by maintaining that credibility, the mainstream media cannot be trumped by social networking and will continue to have its necessary and vital contributions to society.

Twitter offers a new channel for public relations people to deliver their messages to their audiences. Essentially, audiences are scooping the media and public relations people have the ability to avoid the middle man all together. What does this mean for the relationship between PR people and the media?

A professor once told me that when it comes to the media, you want to treat them like they were your girlfriend. It was some of the best advice I ever got. Twitter is a very dangerous tool for PR people because although you can directly target your message to your audience through this channel, it does not offer the same credibility that the media has. Consumers have their media outlets and channels they trust. PR people need to use the relationship that the media has with its audiences strategically to build and deliver effective messages.

Now when you bypass these outlets, its like not talking to your girlfriend and letting her feel unappreciated and not needed. Your girlfriend starts to feel ignored and shunned and is then going to seek attention elsewhere. But when you want that attention and its gone, you feel that chill called loneliness crawl up your spine. Coldblooded! Same thing in this situation. If the PR person goes directly to its audiences and ignores their media relations, it strains the relationship. The media wants to stay current with what you want your audiences to know. With these new channels available, PR people cannot forget that the PR & media relationship is vital and mutually beneficial to both professions.

Ultimately, the media trumps twitter and other social networking sites because of its credibility - a constant theme throughout this blog. Twitter and all of its tweets and apps and widgets do not have the reputation or the established relationship with its audience to dethrone reputable media sources. Although social media is the future of media consumption, media consumers are intelligent and will continue to scrutinize, challenge and filter the twat that is tweeted to get to the facts that only ethical, truthful and powerful journalism can provide.



--- Side note - Arizona just passed a law that allows people who are licensed to carry a concealed weapon to carry guns into places that serve alcohol. WHAT!?