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Everyday there’s a deluge of articles about Twitter but I found yesterday’s Huffington Post column one of the most relevant to Newsy.
Tom Morris’ post ‘Twisdom: Twitter Wisdom‘ explains how Twitter, when done right, enables people to build connections with people all around the world who want to share nuggets of information. Through this cyber community, a wealth of insight and perspective is bestowed upon those who participate – something Morris calls ‘Twisdom.’
Newsy has been a believer in Twitter from the beginning - we use it as a source for Newsy videos and we check to see the news topics that are trending on Twitter so we can produce videos with multiple perspectives on the topics that people are thinking about.
Twitter has been a great way to drive traffic to the Newsy site - visitors who come to Newsy from Twitter stay for up to 20 minutes. We encourage people to follow @Newsydotcom to learn about the day’s videos and other Newsy nuggets - we recently celebrated our 600th follower. And as of this week, you can now follow @NewsyRSS to get Newsy video headlines as soon as they are published.
This week’s Newsy video “To Tweet or Not to Tweet, That Is the Question,” looks at some of the professional athletes who are Tweeting and how sports associations are reacting. Another story this week, ‘A Twitter TwOpera,’ is about an opera created from Twitter submissions.
So far, Newsy videos about Twitter have been popular but we’d love to hear what you think!
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Whether you are liberal or conservative, Froomkin’s firing should be a source of disappointment. First off, the following should be clarified: Is Dan Froomkin, recently fired from The Washington Post, a liberal? Absolutely.
However, in his journalism, Froomkin also largely transcended party loyalty, instead remaining loyal to ideas rather than people–a fairly rare trait. He was, above all else, a watchdog journalist, and he was an equal-opportunity critic when it came to applying his standards to all politicians, including Democrats.
In a recent article in The Washington Post, Glenn Greenwald quotes The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen (emphasis Greenwald’s):
“Indeed, far-right complaints notwithstanding, Froomkin has spent months scrutinizing the Obama White House, cutting the Democratic president no slack at all.”
Read the entire article here:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/19/washpost/
In the marketplace of ideas, let Froomkin’s perspective stand up against the conservative William Kristol’s, Krugman’s against Krauthammer’s. But don’t silence someone because of their political leanings, as appears to be the case with The Post’s firing of Froomkin.
As Greenwald writes:
“Post writers disliked Froomkin because he pointed out the radicalism and deceit of the Bush presidency and (both with his words and actions) highlighted their profound failure to do so, and because the neocon-Right complained about him to the Post.”
Is there anything that insults our nation’s democratic sensibility more than the silencing of dissenting voices? Whether that silencing comes from the government or news organizations should make little difference.
No side of the political spectrum has a monopoly on wisdom, and the second an individual begins to believe his or her political party is always correct, they have shut themselves off from the ability to learn. The marketplace of ideas may be imperfect, it may be messy, but in a democracy, it is the best we can ask for. We should never seek to silence the voices with which we disagree, but rather engage and even learn from them.
At Newsy, our objective is to take news events, provide varying perspectives on them, and then let the audience decide. Our only agenda is to provide a sufficient amount of views to let the audience ascertain the core truth about the news. Of course, this works best with an audience willing to hear all sides before making up their minds.
Froomkin surely wasn’t right all the time. But his perspective was valuable, if only because it was unique. In all likelihood, Froomkin will reemerge, but until he does, the marketplace of ideas is one perspective poorer.
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At Newsy.com we always look forward to covering stories related to space, so we were eager to cover the repair mission to the Hubble Telescope.
Consider the technological feat of the astronauts working some 300 miles above the surface of the earth — after finishing the repair, the crew spent a few extra days in orbit while waiting for perfect landing conditions. From this perch hundreds of miles up, the astronauts enjoyed taking in the view.
They were able to look back and see an earth you won’t find on any map. No borders, no boundaries, just a shining jewel in space.
Think about the perspective they had.
Think also about the new perspectives we’ll all get to enjoy as Hubble searches the cosmos.
When we develop and produce stories here at Newsy, we strive for a higher view. We work to break through borders and focus on reporting in new ways.
Our goal is to provide a moment of clarity, to help make important connections and provide a new way for you to look at a story.
It’s what we work to do every day and we’re always thinking about how we can do it better. Your feedback helps provide guidance.
So, welcome home Atlantis - and welcome all the new perspectives today and just around the corner.
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As news has become more abundant, its value has decreased. News consumers, especially Generation Y, increasingly get headlines from various sources online with little or no loyalty to any organization. This shift in behavior has challenged traditional media companies’ business models and left them scrambling to find a path to profitability.
In his excellent post, ‘The Future of News Is Scarcity,’ Nic Brisbourne discusses how a basic rule of economics - every abundance creates new scarcities - can be applied to the news business. The rule is good news for media companies, which are looking for new ways to make money in the 21st Century.
Why? The abundance of has created a new opportunity for providing thought-provoking analysis of multiple sources. Many of today’s most interesting and popular stories go beyond just simply reporting what has occurred – they bring in relevant context.
The New York Times experiments with this concept in its sections The Lede and The Opinionator – other successful news websites with this model include The Huffington Post for politics and TechCrunch for technology news.
Newsy.com is a trailblazer in offering consumers context with convenience - we’re the only online video news site analyzing various news sources and packaging them in one easily digestible package … because multiple sources help you decide the real story.
