twitter and journalists

The real value in twitter as opposed to FB is that it provides more important information like interesting articles or news from anyone we care to follow (it is fully open, we don’t need people’s permission to follow them). Thus, we are all micro-reporters that people can follow.

A problem will arise when all the so-called micro-reporters (all of us) have nothing to report because all the paid journalists who we reference via links in our tweets go away because the entire value chain that pays them crumbles. You see, twitter works because people have links to share. When all the reporters lose their jobs, we will only have material that is subpar to share. So, while the value chain gets undone and reformed, it is unclear where the money will come from to pay the actual journalists who we all like to reference via links in our tweets. Until very recently, the journalists got paid by the newspapers/magazines, where the real money in journalism was being made. However, as print content continues to fade into the background and more content is consumed online, new forms of online content monetization have not surfaced in a manner that is sufficient to pay the people who actually cover the news.

Simply put, online advertising hasn’t cut it, something else has to come along. Until then, we will lose more and more talented journalists who have to find other means to make ends meet.