Have Tweets already made journalists/Press Conferences obsolete?
Will Journalists be the next career casulties of technology?
Without bias for nostalgia, consider our traditional system to what seems to be already here:
1. - Traditionally, we have to call a press conference and clear schedules and get wires run, and cameras and a big room, and press cards and a million other things together.
- Tweet, you get your phone out, and pen your comment.
2. - Traditionally, Journalists are vetted. Questions are also vetted. If someone goes off script, they will lose their press card and not get invited back to the Press conference. This means that you are getting the illusion of a probing press. In reality, no one is authorized to go off script, and therefore you won't ever get real news from a press conference.
- Tweet, maybe someone sends one, while fired up. This might give more information than you presently get from the media.
3. - Traditionally, the press sits in the room while the offical reads a statement off a teleprompter. In reality, the representatives of the official actually get more podium time, than the Official themselves.
- Tweet, you hear the news from the horses mouth.
4. - Traditionally, after the speech, the Journalist goes back to his camera crew, or microphone, or pad of paper and reports on the news they just heard.
- Tweet, you hear the news directly, yourself.
5. - Traditionally, as the Journalist covers the news, they add their spin to the story (intentionally or not, it's inevitable). Now we are playing whisper down the lane, sometimes with nefarious motivations.
- Tweet, you hear the news immediately, unedited and directly. The Journalists will hear the news at the same time, and then write their spin or interpretations of the Tweet for their media.
6. - Traditionally, millions of dollars.
- Tweet, zero dollars.
Seems like some logical reasons to believe that we might be moving into a new era.