I’ve never been a fan of news vacations — the idea of dropping out of the media whirl to give your psyche a break. And this story in the Times doesn’t suggest that. But I do find the idea of a couple, watching TV debates and then Twittering to all their friends during it a little troubling. Instant information doesn’t mean instant understanding.
Is it too much news or too much punditry? That I can easily take a break from.
I haven’t read Gary Smith, but I will after reading this introduction and the great Q and A. The piece just reinforces my belief that if you write sports, news or features, the good writers do the same things.
Amy Gahran writes at Poynter about Twitter and the presidential debate. I’m going to have to pay more attention to Twitter and talk about it in class more. It seems some expertise or experience would be a good thing. And yet another way to think about how people will get stories and information.
The story also has a person called a news technologist. Cool, huh?
We’ve been trying to tell stories in different ways this semester, and I think it’s proved effective in many places. We don’t have a team of graphic designers, but we do have talented and dedicated writers, editors and photogs who put these things together.
