Twitter Me This, Guardian.

Finally! A newspaper has got the right idea! While our very own colleague Louise laments about speed destroying credible journalism, it seems the winds of change have picked up their gusts. Is the expectation of quick reporting truly the culprit? Or is it the length of the stories? If journalists were required to pare their pieces down straight to the nitty-gritty details, then fact-checking could take precedence.

Are You Nuts?

Yes, but we have, over the last few decades, fashioned our society into one that appreciates brevity and the optimal use of time. It takes time to gather facts, it takes time to check them, it takes time to write them in a way that displays a journalist's integrity, talent and je ne sais quoi. It also takes time to re-read, to edit, to edit some more; and this goes without outlining the time it may take for a story to be formatted for whatever medium it might find its way onto.

And now...

Enter The Guardian

The renowned British newspaper has decided to move away from its print legacy and take flight on the wings of new media. That's right. The Guardian, available only on your trusty Twitter feed and no other. Granted, this does seem an awful lot like a joke, but it really just looks like serious journalism's first attempt to embrace what is slowly gaining ground on them. By harnessing Twitter's platform and the public it reaches, perhaps The Guardian is onto something. The speed and limitations of the live, 140 character-long feed might be a challenge, but what journalist would shy away from one of those?

Besides, most of us lay-people, or "citizens", tend to go trough the headlines first anyways. I don't see how this is such a huge leap. We are already bogged down by choice's paradox, at least this way, with succinct bursts of news, we can be free from the paralysis of choice. We can choose all. Why? Because it takes no time.

So thank goodness for The Guardian! And as they say: "If you can't beat 'em, at least you can avoid the fail whale."


Image Courtesy of CC Chapman.