My First Day on Twitter

By: Greg Mitchell After four decades of writing news in at least paragraph form, I finally joined, if that is the right word, Twitter on Monday. Presto: I already have over 200 "followers," which makes Jesus, with 12, look like a piker. As Marvin Gaye sang, "How tweet it is to be loved by you." But it's the news scoop aspect that impresses me so far.

It was about time I signed on. I came across an online article just yesterday that stated, "Twitter has jumped the shark." It was dated March 25, 2007. Perhaps it is still in mid-air two years later.

So what happened on Monday? Should you take the plunge?

For one thing, I discovered that a longtime source and friend, who happens to work in our E&P World Headquarters in New York City, was recommending to everyone a Vietnamese sandwich shop in the nabe -- and I quickly replied that we ought to meet there for lunch some day.

At least three former online employees here at E&P, and a well-known writer who worked for me at a magazine 25 years ago, found me and are now true (if not necessarily rabid) followers. Also, three former E&P interns tackled me. A former Hollywood producer I interviewed nearly 30 years ago did, too. A guy from The New York Times. Probably a dozen key new media people (some had been goading me into this for a long time). Plenty of strangers. And so on.

Plus a bonus: I found out about the Christopher Walken page, which you simply must visit. L.V. Beethoven, too. And that guy Jesus now has more than 2,000 followers at his King of the Jews page.

Why did I do it now? For one thing, I wanted to test it as a tool for E&P before committing the rest of the staff to it, singly or in a group twit. And I am amazed with the practical results so far. I have found numerous news tips on Twitter updates. Monday was a horrific day in the newspaper biz, with far-reaching furloughs and others cuts announced, and some of the twits I am following had the news first.

I then took those leads, contacted staffers to do full stories, tweeted quickly to "break" the news for E&P fans, then put up on our site the staff articles that in some cases were still scoops. All because of Twitter.

Later, at night, I found a few more quirky things that I linked at our blog. The same thing happened Tuesday. Instant updates from places like NiemanLab are invaluable. Meanwhile, I've already posted about three dozen tweets on subjects ranging from media and politics to film and music.

I've generally been dismissive of Twitter as a further dumbing down of our discourse and journalism but now I see, at least from the first days, the useful side -- if you are in the news business. Frankly, I still don't want to know what you had for lunch. Unless you work in my building and want to do Vietnamese.

You can find me here.