‘The Commentariat is under threat’

Shane Richmond, a tech columnist for the Daily Telegraph, wrote a piece the other day about how other columnists tackle Twitter.

Most of them take a stand against Twitter and label it as a boring site populated by a bunch of complainers who are also scary. The animosity and snark comes, Richmond says, from the fact that these writers know next to nothing about Twitter.

They’re mistaking Twitter for a publishing platform, which – as I’ve written before – it isn’t. To criticise Twitter for its content (or, I should say, your perception of its content) makes as much sense as criticising the content of the telephone networks or the postal service. Like them, Twitter is a means of communicating. The content communicated has no bearing on its value.

Plus, the ease of communication between writers and readers on Twitter scares these old-fashioned columnists, Richmond says.

It’s now possible for columnists and companies to hear what people are saying about them. That’s unnerving for columnists, not least because their opinions are now frequently challenged by people who know more than they do. Instead of responding like adults – correcting when they’ve made a mistake, engaging when someone raises a sensible point and defending themselves from false accusations – they are whining like children and dismissing technologies that they don’t understand.

Related posts:

1. Twitter lists: A gentler introduction to Twitter