Journalism and Mass Communications, College of
Accessibility Remediation
If you are unable to use this item in its current form due to accessibility barriers, you may request remediation through our remediation request form.
@Twitter Is Where J-School Students Need to Be
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
3-2-2011
Abstract
When I told students in my beginning editing class they would be required to create and use Twitter accounts, many were skeptical.
Like most 20-somethings, they were huge Facebook fans. But skeptics didn’t see the merit in 140-character tweets, the short blasts of text permitted on Twitter, a real-time micro-blogging service. They saw Twitter as streams of narcissism – patter about what people were eating or drinking – with no journalistic value.
But I had become a Twitter fan, seeing an increasing number of journalists use it to share news, find sources and connect with readers. Tweets often employ good editing techniques: finding the focus of a story and summarizing it concisely in a headline to entice others to read it.
Comments
Published in Nieman Reports | Professor's Corner, March 2, 2011