I attended a workshop last Thursday as part of Social Media Week, an event that offered free workshops to bloggers, public relations types, new-media gurus and journalists.
As I grabbed a seat in a lecture hall at UBC Robson Square in anticipation of Journalism 2.0, I watched as dozens of other lecture attendees settled into their seats and pulled out their laptops, notebooks, iPads, iPhones, BlackBerries and other smartphones. Journalism 2.0 is the term used to describe the melding of journalism with technologies such as blogging and social networking. Even though its what I do every day, I had to look the definition up online, but please dont tell anyone or I might lose my Facebook membership. In fact, the good news about Journalism 2.0 is that I can now check my Facebook page often during the work day with no hassles from The Man, or Barry, as our editor likes to be called, because its all considered part of the job.
Looking around the room during the one-hour panel discussion, followed by a one-hour Q&A period, I noticed the woman in front of me was sending and replying to emails, a guy one row down and to my left was working on what appeared to be a novel, and a young man several rows below seemed to be completing homework. Meanwhile, everyone else in the room appeared to be tweeting furiously from their gadget of choice. Im a pretty good multitasker, but for one hour I felt I should give the panelistswho, BTW, had volunteered their timemy undivided attention. But not having my phone in my hand made me feel like I wasnt properly participating, so I pulled it out of my bag to tweet, make a grocery list and possibly play a couple of rounds of Wheel of Fortune on Facebook. To my horror, the battery was dead. The shame was overwhelming. Seriously, do I really care so little for my phone and its endless amount of applications that I actually let the battery run dry? Hoping no one noticed, I slid it back into my bag, where it lay as useless as the notepad and pen I had brought but was too ashamed to use.
I didnt agree with everything I heard at Journalism 2.0, but Lisa Christiansen from CBC Radio made one point I absolutely empathized withthat Twitter allows her to immediately find out who hates her. (Cue nasty Twitter comments now.)
It was also discussed that so long as you include in your Twitter profile that the opinions are your own, you can post and retweet anythingapparently with no fact checking and with no repercussions to an employer. Its like a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Heres a recent example. According to recent poll results I saw on Twitter, attributed to a consumer shopping guide/website called Retrevo, 10 per cent of people under 25 think its OK to text during sex. Now thats multi-tasking at its best.
The journalist side of me immediately wondered how many people took part in the survey? Was it one out of 10 who admitted to texting while doing the nasty? Two out of 20? I also wondered if Retrevo is considered a legitimate source of information due to the fact its main goal is to sell electronic gadgets, likely to people under the age of 25. Then theres the ethics of using a target audience. Who are the people responding to this polland who benefits from it?
But then I decided, why over-think it? Its a good story and the fact some people cant even perform a sexual act without texting totally backs up my point that social media is out of control. And really, wouldnt fact checking just get in the way of a good yarnand water down my opinion?
In fact, I think Ill tweet about it right now.
@Retrevo says teenagers think its OK to text during sex. The story must be true, I found it on Twitter.
Twitter: @sthomas10
