Journalist, it's time to leave Twitter

Friends, reporters, parents: it is time for all journalists to consider breaking away from what happens daily on Twitter, the most dangerous social network in the world.

You do not have to drop everything, because it is impossible in the news sector. Better publish less and search more.

"Nunca tuitees" is an ironic meme on Twitter, an idea that the media say to recognize how pointless it is to think about leaving this platform where all information appears first. I wish to suggest another meaning: "Never tweet" should be an aspiration, a necessary step to improve the relationship between the media and the digital world.

Of course, I have adopted this superiority complex because we have just spent a terrible week on the internet. Throughout the weekend – largely thanks to Twitter amplification – Kentucky high school students dressed in red caps with Trump's motto "Let's Make the United States Great Again", and the discussion on whether they had harbaded an old Native American man during a demonstration in Washington, eclipsed the other news.

At first, the crowd on Twitter followed the children of Covington Catholic High School. Later, when more and more details appeared on the incident, a crowd followed the people who had attacked the children. Nobody has won; In the end, the whole was only a partisan scandal and a source of division.

It was just another weekend on Twitter. However, in its ups and downs, Covington's story clearly shows that Twitter affects American journalism.

The Covington incident illustrates how, every day, the media's favorite social media plunges more and more journalists into a tribal melodrama that bypbades our best instincts and promotes group thinking based on robots. and the mbades. During this process, it helps to reinforce the most damaging stereotypes of our profession. Instead of making them curious and intellectually honest chroniclers of humanity, Twitter constantly converts many people in the media – I included myself – into irrational indignities who react instinctively after adopting this or that cause, full of labels, miss written presidential missives or targeted information campaigns.

However, Twitter does not destroy only the media image. It also biases our journalism. All elements of the Twitter interface favor a state of mind opposed to journalistic investigation: it favors form to content and inexpensive arguments to reasoned debate while reducing the time of the press.

In the initial wave of outrage at the children of Covington, before more details were known, many media – who have since confessed that they had to wait a little longer – took part in the fight. They said things that they should not have had. They have ignored the most measured, cold and discordant ideas, because the wave of resentment on Twitter makes us narrow in mind and discourages empathy. There is never time to wait before having your opinions: the fear of staying (the main sensitivity of this social network) forces everyone to give their opinion before we know a lot, because at the moment when more information will be available, Twitter will already be pbaded. to another subject.

I am not interested in discussing events related to Covington's children. I have read and seen at least half a dozen charges and, amidst the blur of videos captured by mobile phones, I do not know exactly what happened. The story seems rather complicated to do a careful badysis, but it is not surprising that no one has examined it properly in the few moments that I reviewed Twitter last weekend.

I confess that when I saw the video of a smiling teenager who looked scornfully at an old man who was playing the drum, I was also indignant. My political ideas distort me against young people, as well as something in their sufficiency and certainty – they seem to imitate the movement of an ax with their hands and wear a cap to show their support for a racist president – confirms all what he thinks of the situation. The ugliness of our Trumpian era.

In the past, he would have accompanied other media that could not contain his outrage. I would have tweeted my silly opinion – as I had done with Justine Sacco and when I inadvertently leaked a disinformation extracted from police radios after the bombing of the Boston Marathon, as I did. I have done it too many times to count them all – and I would have had a much higher moral feeling while I have every taste.

The only reason I did not become a clown this time around is because I've dramatically reduced the time I spend on Twitter. In addition to promoting my own articles and communicating with my readers, I almost never communicate with the news.

I started to stop tweeting last year, not because I was morally superior to other journalists, but because I was afraid to be weaker.

I'm addicted to Twitter since it's been here. For years, I tweeted all the cool and silly ideas that came to mind, anytime, anywhere; I've tweeted since my marriage and when my kids were born, and there was little more fun in life than hanging out on Twitter, watching the latest news come out.

However, this social network is no longer a journalism club without worries. Instead, it's the epicenter of an unstoppable war of information, a gladiator stage with management so bad that it's almost comical, a place where activists, misinformation artists, politicians and publicists come together to lead and influence the world of the media at large.

For a journalist, ignoring this chaos requires great inner strength. I realized that Twitter was taking all my time and energy and I knew that sooner or later I would do anything. Basically, I suspect that many are worried about the same thing.

Are right. Twitter is going to ruin us and it's time to stop.

Copyright: The New York Times 2019 Press Office.