TWITNEWS

Just the teeniest, tiniest of rants of the day, today...

Whenever there's a news story nowadays, the "online" version (and sometimes even the main bulletin) always seems to be full of celebrity Twitter quotes about what the "great" and the "good" "reckon" about whatever the situation is, the finding of which seems to be what passes for journalism in the modern era.

Nowadays it seems as if the "profession" of Journalism involves spending your day on the various social networking sites looking for the various impressive tid-bits that other people have written. I've lost track of the number of times I've read a few interesting comments in TwitWorld only to find that some hack has bundled them together into some kind of "non-story" on tomorrow's news feeds.

Perhaps this is the price we pay for having this almost voracious need for "24 Hour Rolling News"...? After all, with so much time and space to fill, the exceedingly trivial, and things that are 'trending" become ever more desperate reasons to seek out anything that resembles a "story" no matter how banal and pointless, or how much of a press release for a new, miraculous "Wonder Product" (usually Snake Oil) that it might actually be...

And in a society (I nearly said "culture" there but had to stop myself) where what everyone "reckons" about pretty much is now deemed to be so very important, this means that translating the banal and pointless into "News" has become something of an art form...

If you consider copying and pacing a few random comments to be "art" of course...

Also, so-called "Journalists" always seem to be trawling for their "non-stories" on fan sites and concocting fake scandals speaking about "outrage" about some trivial matter or other (usually involving football, celebrities or telly programes or, on occasions, the special madness reserved for the users of "Mum's net") when in reality there's just one lonely voice who's feeling "outraged" about some trifling issue and who's got into a trolling slanging match with another poor wretch, or, more alarmingly, found another similar spirit who agrees with them and has decided to assist them in their plans to reshape the world in their image.

But it's the celebrity quotes that seem worst. Especially when another celebrity has passed over into that exclusive VIP Lounge in the sky. The once noble art of the obituary writer has now been transformed into a ghastly "cut and paste" parade of what a list of celebrities posted on Twitter as they sat watching the news that morning...

"So sad to hear about..." etc.

Someone needs reminding that a whole list of other people's "OMGs" does not add up to an actual story, a reasoned debate, or a proper "tribute" to anyone, and the truly great and memorable pieces of journalism that have been written over the years have been down to sheer hard graft and knowledge of the craft that the profession, I'll grudgingly admit, once used to have...