How the Twits are undermining journalism
Maurice O'Brien • Published 19 May 2012 09:30
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WHEN Dave doesn't know the meaning of LOL but can still find time to interrupt his daily routine of political appeasement to send schmoozing texts, and much of the population appears incapable of keeping its unspoken thoughts to itself, can the day be far off when all written communication consists of no more than 140 characters?
Royal Mail clearly thinks so, with a pricing campaign aimed at deterring us from writing letters to allow its postmen more room in their satchels for flyers from purveyors of solar energy and water softeners.
Eventually we'll all be easy prey to the twitters or bloggers who sneer about 'dead trees' media yet spend 99% of their time rantingly dissecting newspaper stories. Just as bad are the cowardly bullies who hide behind a cloak of anonymity to write toilet-wall defamatory obscenities on websites, and whine about censorship when they're taken down.
The stench of hypocrisy emanating from the Leveson Inquiry will long outlast its conclusions. Which is worse, some featherhead actor tweeting about the brand of marmalade he had for breakfast or whingeing about media invasion of his privacy? A disingenuous press release or a journalist diligently seeking the truth?
Last Friday we were invited to a photocall at Reading Station when Sir Bob Kerslake (so laid back they don't call him Robert), head of the civil service, arrived on an official visit.
Now, the day before some of Sir Bob's civil servants, from various Reading establishments including the crown court and JobCentre, had been on strike over their pensions and rapidly vanishing retirement dates, so you'd have though it resonable for your leading local newspaper to ask a question about it.
That's exactly what my colleague Alex Gore thought, and did. Had he got an answer he might well have ventured a second question concerning that day's national newspaper reports which said the Government is planning to 'rank' civil servants and sack the poor performers.
However, having begun to respond to Mr Gore's poser, Sir Bob gratefully allowed himself to be strategically interrupted by a swarm of twittering flunkeys who bore him off, beyond the reach of democratic curiosity.
The sequel to this episode came hours later on Friday when Sir Bob found time to tell Twitter: "The vast majority of civil servants work hard and do a good job. Like others we can do better at tackling poor performers."
So there you have it. LOL as Dave would say. Or maybe he wouldn't.
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