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Comment by chaps | Hacker News Reader

Journalist here -- you're missing a lot of the point. There are bunches of reasons. Basically it's near impossible to have a journalism career without being on Twitter. For network/sources building, the ease of access to peers (ever try to find a journalist's unlisted email address?), and it acts as a way to show your "brand" that can make intros much easier (reputation is built on trust, so Twitter can be useful to convey that a person is relatively trustworthy and quickly). A lot of journalists will also share information that got cut out during editing (not many alternatives to host that sort of side-narrative and docs stuff). Also, there's a lot of proximity to orgs (eg nonprofits) who themselves have eyes and ears outside of Twitter.

That said, my experience is in local municipal stuff and a lot of this is no longer true because of musk shit.

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So... You confirm that you are writing for each other.

If it's like a liked-in account for developers, it explains very clearly why journalists use it so much. But this is not the use people claim to get from the platform. On that account, linked-in is way more honest.

No. Like another poster posted, it's more like github. It's hard to overstate the sharing of information, code and documents that happens on twitter.

Side note: it's a very strange thing to read a comment like this from someone who puts their multiple websites in their profile not unlike a resume.

Ok, github is indeed closer to what you said.

Still, we use github to talk to each other. Not to the public. When news companies talk about posting things on twitter, they always talk about reaching the public, and when journalists quote it, they use it as if it came from the general public.

There's nothing wrong with journalists talking with each other. What's unsettling is that you almost unanimously claim you are using the platform in a completely different way. (And apparently honestly believe that claim.)

Look man, you're not going to get a perfect comparison anywhere. But your problems with quoting twitter is something I agree with! But as it turns out, different people within the same profession have different standards of what they publish on. So you're casting a very, very, very large net there. We could talk about the issues with journalism for years and this one issue would be a tiny drop in the bucket.

"What's unsettling is that you almost unanimously claim you are using the platform in a completely different way. (And apparently honestly believe that claim.)"

I have zero idea what you're referring to here. What is "a completely different way" and why do I apparently honestly believe that?

Do you have any thoughts on preventing the general Nazi atmosphere of modern Twitter seeping into the mainstream discourse via your journo buddies? It's a real sewer there at this point. How do you inoculate yourselves?

He’s said a couple of times that it’s used for (amongst other things) connecting with and cultivating sources. That’s definitely not talking to each other.

Also, in the context of the GP “talking to each other” was clearly intended to mean that journalists using Twitter had no point. He’s explained why that isn’t the case.

It doesn’t have to be a negative thing though.

Journalists on Twitter is totally OK as a community that is Tweeting at each other for the benefit of their own networking and community.

That’s not a bad thing :-)

I think this was true a while back, but the ecosystem on Twitter is basically destroyed.

There was a period between 2010-2020 when Twitter was truly the main convergence of entertainment, media, political and financial commentators. It was the place to be seen.

It doesn't seem to really exist anymore. These different verticals have been scattered all throughout the internet. It is an increasingly small number of people who simply hang around there for the little dopamine hit they get when they see the notification.

Most political and corporate communications strategies have diversified away from Twitter because it is a sinking ship. This started before Elon took the helm, but he has certainly accelerated its demise. Increasingly, it is a reputational risk to even be on the platform anymore.

By what concrete metric is it a sinking ship?

Are not all of Twitters published metrics down off their peak?

Ad Revenue is down for sure.

I don't know. Are they? That was partly my question - which has not been answered despite the claims confidently made above. Ad revenue being down doesn't strike me as making it a sinking ship. Is revenue not down off its peak for most companies?

The stock certainly has performed far worse before the acquisition - especially relative to others.

The ads on there are the tell. It is all weird random objects from Alibaba sold under companies/brands that don't really exist. This used to be the premier advertising medium for global brands.

There are lots of professional journalists and citizen journalists on Twitter spaces getting much more nuanced info about articles, and viewpoints that I see in online or print media.

Especially when a politician shows up for several minutes to an hour to be interrogated by relatively-anonymous citizen journalists. I don't think humanity has seen anything like it, except maybe when print media was the only way to get news, where pubs and town criers would spread information and you might get a chance to "mob" a politician or leader in the streets to get a few answers out of them that the newspapers wouldn't print.

So you just proved their point? Or is this indicative of journalism just kinda going under where you basically deny what someone said only to bolster their point.

You basically said it is to feel important (your branding, whatever) amongst your peers.

The general public doesn't care, you do though (what the person you're replying to said, and basically what you just reiterated). As a member of the general public that doesn't use twitter (I use nitter to view twitter, and I won't call it X), I feel that it is a massive echo chamber amplified by bots and fake engagement numbers.

Oi mate calm down, hey?

You're twisting every aspect of my post to the point of satire. I never said anything about wanting to "feel important" amongst peers and your interpretation is.. strained, at best. I'm literally just talking about career growth here.

Maybe take a deep breath and a break.

Sorry lol just being honest. I'm ESL so sometimes I guess my thoughts don't translate the best into english but I was just saying you refuted their statement only to bolster it, which I thought was odd coming from journalist. Cheers m8

Wasn't trying to bolster anything in any direction. Was just sharing what I've seen through a first-person lens. Good luck.

I understood it as "the way to show that you are a trustworthy journalist (and therefore attract both willing publishers and willing sources) is to be seen on e.g. Twitter/X, reporting things." So like, yes, there's a performative aspect that you do for other journalists, but its not solely that. Its not Linkedin for journalists. Its the equivalent of having a very robust github profile that's stacked with your own content.

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