Twitter is my pub.

It’s where I catch up with those I know, those I should know an

d those I definitely don’t want to know.
While, unlike Facebook, I think Twitter is currently a gathering of mainly news
and politics junkies, I do believe it has the potential to be society’s water cool
er, the lunch rooms of offices around the world, where gossip is exchanged, new
connections made but more crucially for us, an avenue where news stories, ideas,
links and directions are swapped and discussed.
People love information. Some people love to share information. They are not all
journalists.
At the simplest of levels, the Melbourne radio station I work for – 3AW, is steadi
ly building up listeners who are followers and vice-versa, putting out calls for
people in a certain area who might be affected by a fire, traffic-jam or someth
ing worse. People armed with their smartphones will send in photos, tweet their
observations, perhaps even a short clip.
Now anyone everywhere can be your eyes and ears.
While people love a gossip, no-one likes a furphy and that is where trusted mast
heads can access new audiences by stepping in and doing what they have always do
ne, filtering out those late night callers with their alien landing conspiracy t
heories, extracting the pithy kernels of truth from the vast tip of rubbish, dou
ble checking and then presenting the information in it s context.
Even with Wikileaks - the raw cables are there for all to read but it s old medi
a like the Guardian and the Herald which is giving it its full meaning.
I’ve never been one to believe the internet is the death of traditional media and
nor do I believe social media will consume the old ways; when the big stories ha
ppen, people turn to the mastheads they trust.
But what the internet and particularly social media IS doing, is creating a new
way of journalism where our processes, news judgements and indeed the entire pro
fession is more accessible and accountable than its ever been.
This should not be feared; it s benefits are immense.
Take the hashtag #ausvotes, the search code applied to all tweets relating to th
e election. There I was sitting in a press conference in Perth, listening to Jul
ia Gillard deliver an education policy. About 2 minutes prior the travelling med
ia had been given the paperwork outlining her proposed changes. On Twitter a mot
her writes to me with a question about the policy she understands better than I.
It’s a good question and not one I thought to ask, so I ask it. I don’t think that
Mother was particularly satisfied with Julia Gillard’s response (welcome to journa
lism) but that is what I call the long promised citizen journalism made possible
thanks to live broadcasting on old media and online interaction via new media.
Take Subway Jeff, sick and tired of the NAB stuffing up his payments just recent
ly, he logged in last week to discover they’d now overpaid him. Being a journalist
he’d followed on Twitter for more than year, met in person, and clearly trusted,
he privately messaged me with his frustrations. I passed it on to the right prod
ucer who checked it out and bingo, that afternoon he was being interviewed on-ai
r by Derryn Hinch. A new way of doing something old – putting a disgruntled custom
er to air.
Twitter is talkback.
Sure, there are a whole heap of drawbacks to Twitter, the abuse, the sheer mass
of it, the potential for a dodgy someone to try and bait you with false informat
ion, the easy way in which it can incite panic, false reporting (think the Qanta
s crash that never happened) but they are lessons that can be learned and challe
nges overcome with the traditional skills any good journalist will have; healthy
scepticism, a thick enough skin and a knack for spotting what’s newsworthy.
Since joining twitter and providing part of a tailor made, live, raw news feed f
or those interested in the goings-on at parliament house, I have had ministers,
staffers, MPs and peoples from lobby groups, all approach me with stories, infor
mation and their inside takes. Some of these frontbencher had previously rebuffe
d my request for a coffee for years.
So why now? Because Twitter is intimate - just like radio, people tweet from bed
, in the bath and the trust some will establish with you pays more dividends tha
n any amount of liquor bought at the Holy Grail.
While social media is a space I do not believe mastheads can vacate, that recogn
ition must amount to more than giving tacit approval to journalists to freely tw
eet away.
News agencies should draw up very clear guidelines about what their journalists
can and can’t do online. Create official social media accounts and dedicate a jour
nalist to use them properly.
Reporters should be taught how to use the mediums, just as they would receive in
struction about how to write a spicy lead, throw to a grab, look the camera in t
he eye while you’re waiting to begin your live cross.
Don’t laugh at this my friends but journalists will also need something a little m
ore modern than the old Nokia if they are to be capable of live tweeting, upload
ing a pic or short clip when they are at the scene of a newsworthy event.
And doing social media right is time consuming. It takes energy to follow up tha
t inquiry which could yield you the angle no-one else has thought out.
New media’s there, not just to be colonised by us, but to be embraced for what it
is; an imperfect interaction.