Back in the good old days, journalists used to respect politicians and even bolstered many of their projects and agendas.
Enter Twitter, and the media industry’s embrace of the site that encourages quickie comments.
The result? Insults and snark directed at politicians from those very same journalists.
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“For many years, the media have operated as political institution in tune with key political actors’ agendas,” says a new study of tweets from 430 political reporters in the scholarly publication Journalism.
Now, it adds, “Twitter has disrupted this balance” with tweets that have politicians feeling “like they are being bullied by journalists desperate for zingers and willing to share their opinion regardless of official quotes.”
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The study, “The Boys on the Timeline: Political Journalists’ use of Twitter for Building Interpretive Communities,” from the University of Texas, looked at 5,700 tweets from the first 2012 presidential debate. It found a wave of insults and snarky comments from reporters.
Besides offering zingers they couldn’t get away with in their official stories, it found reporters liked to tie personal maladies to what they cover. The study, for example, quoted New York Times reporter Michael Shear tweeting: “Best thing about live-blogging the #DenverDebate at the NYT is that you can do it with a trimalleolar ankle fracture #couchpotato.”
But it concludes that Twitter journalism has helped give the nation a better perspective on politics, snark and all, as reporters reveal their criticism of candidates that is typically kept out of their news stories.
“The public is rewarded with carefully crafted political messages being collectively and publicly deconstructed online,” says the study, which was provided to Secrets.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
