Yep. For those who have never seen one, it isn’t a text message, it is an alert that pops up on the screen, accompanied by beeping and a synthesized voice reading it aloud. I screencapped this one a couple of years back.
Yeah, but in the context of “Twitter employees could decamp to Google for free lunch, but for the commute during rush hour traffic”, the lunch is just as free at Google SF and the commute (if they’re currently commuting to Twitter HQ) barely changes.
How it appears depends mostly on how your phone manufacturer chose to implement it. On my Samsung, e.g., i get the popup and the beep but no read-aloud. There are also several versions of the wireless emergency alert standard, and older phones aren’t capable of receiving all the bells and whistles. Verizon publishes a list of which models can receive which version; your carrier may have a similar list.
My data point, too. I don’t go to twitter for news. I usually go to tweets that other people find. I only follow people because I like them and want to contribute to their numbers. I don’t check everything they post.
I am not a journalist, nor a user of Twitter or other social media platforms in any professional capacity, so perhaps my opinion carries little weight with regard to being informed by experience or utility. However, I’ll say that as a critical consumer of news content, I’ve found the dependence upon ‘sources’ of social media and Twitter in particular by working journalists to be a dire decline in both the quality of information and the vetting of sources. I’ve heard from many different people how Twitter has “revolutionized journalism” through the immediacy of information access, but often that information seems so poorly verified as to be worthless, leading news agencies to ‘report’ on tweets or posts from unidentified sources as implied truth when it actually ends up being complete fabrications, and because they come at such a furious pace little effort is made to retract inaccurate information under the thesis that nobody should expect information posted to social media platforms to be ‘completely’ (or at all) accurate.
It has led to an even greater problem, however, in my experience, which is the normalization of Twitter and other such platforms as legitimate channels for formal communication and direction, which is problematic in some ways. Of course, former President Trump’s use of Twitter to give ‘official’ executive direction was abnormal to the extreme, and highly problematic from both security and record-keeping aspect, but while he was hardly the first public official to do so, the media hanging onto and analyzing his every post regardless of how nonsensical it was (remember the furor over “Despite the constant negative press covfefe”?) was not only an enormous waste of effort but detracted attention from some of the actual problems and threats that the media at large should have been paying more attention to. Of course, the problem of relying upon Twitter or other social media as an official channel is not just that with any lapse in platform security someone could ‘hack’ the account or produce a sincere-looking parody account (as we’ve recently seen) but that such accounts are often accessed by multiple people who can post anything they like whether it is an official decree or not without authentication.
Making it “possible for inexperienced journalists or journalists researching a story in which they have no prior experience,” is, in my way of thinking, a big problem. Journalists should have experience or seek out guidance from those that do rather than rely upon some minimal amount of research from unauthenticated sources on social media. This just feeds into what I see as an increasingly garbage-in/garbage-out model of ‘news’ reporting and analysis which has become talking heads all saying some version of the same thing despite the fact that they are all equally ill-informed on the topic. We have lost a generation of journalists who learned to spend time understanding their stories and subjects, or pound a beat at the local courthouse, or develop actual sources within municipal and state government, and instead we have people ‘reporting’ on shit they saw on Facebook or Twitter. I’ve often critiqued CNN.com in particular for puffing up their content by linking to a tweet and then repeating it word for word in text below, but honestly almost all daily news content does some version of the same including venerable journalistic sources such as The Washington Post and The New York Times.
As for being “Good for journalists” and “especially good for readers”, I’ll point out the countless number of times that an otherwise credible journalist has posted some opinion on their “official” Twitter feed about some very personal, non-journalistic views, and then had to retract or apologize because of the potential damage to their credibility as an objective reporter of facts. And it isn’t as if journalists should be automatons without their own views and opinions, but Twitter in particular encourages posting “shot straight from the hip” impressions without reflection or context. I think Twitter has been absolutely terrible for journalists—even hip “New Media” journalists whose outlet is a blog or vlog—because it doesn’t encourage or even allow for nuance or context. And while many news consumers are clearly looking for outrage over nuance, using a platform that reinforces that is basically turning every journalistic source int TMZ and Gawker. Now, maybe there is a real need for this kind of ‘journalism’—and since I actively avoid viewing it I wouldn’t claim to know—but it should not be the only approach to news that is available, which is what social media in general and Twitter in particular is doing to reporting.
There may be a Twitter-like platform that could actually be good for journalism, but in my (again, not informed by professional association) opinion, Twitter is not it. And for all that I detest Elon Musk in multiple ways for his personal and professional conduct, I think he is doing the world a favor by burning Twitter down to the waterline. Perhaps someone will come back and build a “Ship of Theseus” upon the carcass that will be an actually decent platform, or journalists will move to something better, but I think the long-overdue demise of Twitter is nothing but net benefit save for those who use it for targetted professional communications in pursuit of legitimate business.
Stranger
You must have been acquainted with better quality local newspapers than me–around here rewriting press releases is what the local media have always mostly specialized in.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he had bots that voted in the poll himself. I mean, he’s the one who keeps making a big deal about numbers of tweets or viewers.
What would surprise me is if he was smart enough to know that there would be a bias towards “Yes” due to his pushing away people and Trump rallying people to vote. Oh, and people who want to see Twitter burn down.
So what it comes down to is that you don’t actually understand how good journalists use Twitter and why it’s good for journalists, journalism, and readers. You only know how the bad ones use it, because those are the ones that mention Twitter or directly display tweets.
Journalists also don’t put in their stories how many times they used the telephone or spoke to colleagues. So I can understand why you wouldn’t know this. However, be aware that you are reaching your conclusions based on ignorance of the situation.
I’m open to being educated on the topic of the ‘good’ use of Twitter in journalism. I remain dubious that Twitter is somehow a crucial resource that cannot be dispensed with or replaced by other sources, but I’ll admit that I largely observe it being used for disinformation, or misused as a conveyance for public communication even though it is not part of any formal recordkeeping or has adequate security against being hijacked or appropriated by non-authorized users.
Stranger
Ok, you can literally search for any job title… like, say, ‘astrophysicist’ and come up with a list of people who can bring clarity to a topic. And, yes, you can use LinkedIn, but the interface is clumsier and the messaging effectively broken.
Are you saying that you would go to Twitter to find information or expertise on astrophysics? Literally anyone can make an account on the platform claiming to be an expert in any field, and you would have no way to establish their credentials. I can’t even imagine why that would be the first place you would think to look. It would be far more rational to call up a local university and ask to talk to someone in the field who could recommend a recognized expert, or if you have some semblance of what you are looking for, look for authors of papers online on the specific topic of interest. This is exactly the kind of bad usage of Twitter (or other social media) that I’m actually concerned with; doing the absolute easiest and most lazy way of ‘confirming’ information or finding a ‘expert’ instead of actually going to the necessary effort to find the right source for factual information.
Stranger
… and that is what the verification system is (was) for.
Seriously, you have spent 50+ posts tapdancing on the grave of something you repeatedly claim you don’t use, admit you don’t understand, and are openly antipathetic towards.
And, frankly, I’m not interested in spending the same effort rebutting you, sorry. But I can honestly say… from the depths of my knowledge and experience… that you are just wrong.
You just use Twitter to make contact with a potential source. Then you verify their credentials after that. The same way you would do for any other new source. The advantages are speed, and not wasting time contacting people who don’t want to participate. Having been a journalist in the pre- and post-Internet eras, Twitter or something like it is absolutely transformative for the ability of good journalists to make contact with new sources. And vice versa. People with information can reach out to reporters directly and easily.
One thing I found Twitter to be unparalleled at was bringing new people to the SDMB. I constantly market this site, linking to threads and posts, and no site works like Twitter in getting this place new readers.
This one tweet got 3,400 visitors:
I have about 6 others with 1k + link clicks and dozens where hundreds have clicked the links and read (assuming) the topic. Easily 10k visitors a year for over 1/2 a decade.
LinkedIn is horrible. Facebook… well, there’s a reason Zuck didn’t call it Brainbook. Only Twitter had the sort of audience and engagement to which the SDMB would appeal. And a number of my follows… including Matt Yglesias and Hayes Brown (MSNBC producer and reporter)… used to be members here.
And when Twitter goes, well, so does this. And I know it doesn’t matter, but it does to me because I don’t want to see this place die or become the same 1,000 old farts talking about the same shit in the same manner.
I’m not a heavy user of Twitter, but there are a ton of verified experts on the platform that I will occasionally read as with the aforementioned CA fire season. For example Daniel Swain. He’s pretty easy to verify as an individual and has a blog I follow more actively. But for breaking news, Twitter is indeed more functional and he does yeoman’s work spreading the word and current research on climate change to people who are not deeply interested enough to want to dig into a long blog essay.
I get your negativity about Twitter Stranger_On_A_Train, I really do. It’s full of toxicity and bullshit and has been used for malign purposes to spread propaganda. I think Trump did more societal damage from Twitter than any other single platform. But I think your very unfamiliarity with it has allowed your opinion to be carried too far in the opposite extreme, to the point where you think it is all worthless garbage. It is not. Twitter contains multitudes - from the harmless, to the the informative, to the hilarious, to the socially conscious, to the highly utilitarian, to the toxic, to the corrosive, to the actively evil. It isn’t just one thing.
…I follow Katie Mack on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/AstroKatie
She is literally an astrophysicist.
When anything astrophysicist-adjacent happens in the news she’s normally the first twitter feed I’ll check to get a clearer understanding of what its all about.
If I’ve got the option of either calling up the local university and bothering someone in the field to recommend a recognized expert, or following a recognized expert that had a verified Twiter feed, I’ll take following the expert with a verified Twitter feed thanks 
And you are ignoring the entirety of black twitter.
You really, really, really do not understand how a journalist work. Like @Acsenray I’ve been at it pre-internet and later, though not since Twitter started. I would’ve loved having a tool such as Twitter at hand, and I worked for the equivalent of BBC in my country. Let me break it down for you.
All journalism starts with curiosity. You see/hear/read/smell (yes actual smell) something and wonder Huh!? It could be anything, a conversation over heard on a bus, walking out at night and thinking Is that the freakin’ aurora borealis?
If you’re working in a news room, you might ask a colleague. If you’re at home, you might call or text a friend Can you walk outside and look at the sky?
These days you start checking different online sources: Wikipedia, Britannica, Google Scholar, the weather service, online news. There may be something to this PNI.
You start digging deeper. Again, if you’re in a news room, you might ask around if someone knows an astro-physicist or whatever expert you might need.
Ka-ching, some colleague’s daughter h as a friend in the astronomy dept. at a local Uni.
You start reading up more on the subject, while trying to arrange a way to get in touch with this post grad girl.
Contact established, after pleasantries you ask if they know some big whig who’s capable of communication (not always the case at a Uni, more later) and who also might be willing to be interviewed.
Establish connection with expert, do interview and try not to sound too stupid asking the questions. The interview is, in it self, part of the research.
Write up the story.
This is highly simplified and a straight forward story, with no politics, drama or controversy. I’ve left out that the reporter will have thrown out half a dozen requests to different people, because waiting for someone to call back and doing nothing will get you kicked out of any news room quickly.
I actually did this very story, about 35 years ago. I didn’t think the AB could be seen as far south as I was. It made for a little fluff piece. Another way a story gets told is that the editor assign something: Check out the rumor that City Hall will…
Twitter is one more tool in the box to do this: You seem to think that a reporter does research on Twitter, or blindly follows links posted. No. The way I called colleagues and friends, I’d work Twitter: Anyone knows someone who knows astronomy and stuff? Another way to throw out a hook to see if anyone responds.
BTW, if you think you’re going to find someone to interview by calling the communications dept at a University, think again. The call back will be next day with a reply along the line of someone who will get back to me next Friday.
As for breaking news, wildfires, toxic spills. Of course, no one should rely on Twitter as an information source. But journalists follow CDC and if they post a breaking news story on Twitter, news rooms over the country will pick up on Monkey Pox and start doing the leg work.
Twitter is not a media, it’s a tool, such as the phone, and the way it works, when it’s at its best, is by rapid proliferation of the message to a lot of different sources and receivers. The way you argue is the way someone used to writing long hand in the mid of the 19th century would’ve argued against the telegraph.
I’ve had a twitter account for years and find it useful enough. Currently, I’m using it to watch the meltdown.
I mentioned something about it to hubs and today he thought he would sign up for a free account to check it out. It appears as though the sign up thingy is broken cause it keeps hanging up at the last step.
The problem being brought up about information, ISTM is not with Twitter/Social Media per se, but rather with how mass public opinion and journalism respond and do the wrong things about it. Yes, it makes it a lot easier to propagate nonsense and let the segents of the population believe that everybody agrees on that nonsense due to bubble effects. Yes, it makes it easier for news media who are focused only on the scoop and the eyeballs to publish “news” that basically are just “hey, look at what someone put up on Twitter” and “can you give us your opinion on this thing someone put up on Twitter”? ISTM it’s more a bad-money-drives-out-good problem, where trash journalism being easy, cheap, abundant, accessible, and pushed by the algorithm, it runs away from those who are trying to be responsible. Can we really count on the social nets to prevent that happening?
Something I do find offputting is the attitude that they are to fulfill the role of “the public square”, yet at the same time keep being treated as the privately owned for-profit spaces they are, so that it is up to the owners’ whim if you are allowed on the public square or not.
But if it wasn’t Twitter-as-we-know-it, by now something that does the same thing would have come around. And once we saw the rise of the smartphone as we know it, the reliance on the App as opposed to the web interface was inevitable: a majority of people out there never learned to operate an actual web interface before getting iOS or Android in their hands.
When a journalist is looking for a source for even a routine story, E might make five, ten, fifteen, twenty calls to try to find even one source. Using the telephone like this is a very slow process. Meanwhile, your editor is hounding you for copy and you might get maybe a day and a half to make progress on that story before the editor tells you to stop wasting time and work on a story you can finish today.
So you put it on the back burner and try to work on it when the editor isn’t hanging over your shoulder. You check with other colleagues in the organization. You might even call another journalist who has written about this.
You think about your parents, your friends, your parents’ friends, professors you know. Yeah, you’ll cold call some professors or people who have been quoted extensively, but the more high profile the source is, the more likely they ignore calls unless they’re from the New York Times or NBC or something else they think is prestigious.
And then maybe someone will call back with an idea for someone they think might be a good source and you might get a connection.
But remember your ability to succeed often depends on your own reputation or the reputation of the news organization you are looking for.
Bob Woodward had a lot of success in the Watergate investigation, because he came from a certain class of society and he had certain contacts.
But what if you’re not Bob Woodward? What if you didn’t go to Harvard? What if you don’t work for the Times? What if you are new to journalism or you are new to this subject matter?
The job of a journalist for a general audience publication is to be able to write about anything at any time. You are required to achieve some level of expertise within a few days usually and track down reputable sources.
Very few journalists have all the privileges of someone with a particular personal background, or a particular bomber of years of experience and reputation, or a reputable employer. From day one you are at the bottom of the heap and you get up in the morning and you get a chance to build a little of that up at a time.
Meanwhile it’s fucking hard to find a good source and it’s fucking hard to get em to call you back when you’re a goddamn nobody.
Twitter, as stated above is a tool, like talking to people you know, like calling people on the phone or sending E-mail. But you are reaching potentially millions of people and there is a global potential of people out there who might make good sources.
Twitter doesn’t validate a source any more than the telephone does. But it’s a place to start and its reach is awesome. It absolutely would be a blow to journalism to lose something like that.