Hmm... perhaps that's a productive definition of "journalism." ... But I guess I don't understand your point.
If you're saying that meaningful information can't be conveyed in 142 characters then I think you'd be dismissing the majority of spoken conversations, chat, sms, etc. A good example to the contrary: https://twitter.com/Boston_Police
If diluted quality and deluge quantity--firehouse, ahem--is what this thread is about, those are the points I speak to.
Trivial information can be shared in 142 characters. Sure, T is used by some as an aggregator/reader/chat tool, but then what are we doing talking tech here at HN instead of on T? The format and structure just isn't optimal for these functions. It's breadth and no depth with that format and structure.
I never said gossip is of zero value, but I did say 142 characters will never be journalism. The legacy media structure is precisely why the world is in such a bad spot today. That you jest about journalism is just an example of the systemic problem in society writ large. What you should be complaining about is quality, not the function itself.
> That you jest about journalism is just an example of the systemic problem in society writ large...
The last thing I wanted was to jest about journalism. I'm an avid reader of long accounts of events. My point in putting "journalism" in quotes was that you seemed to be offering a definition to a specific term as opposed to discussing the capacity to convey information through various media.
I didn't want to argue semantics -- I wanted to discuss the capacity of Twitter to convey information quickly.
> What you should be complaining about is quality, not the function itself.
142 characters is a headline. Often it includes a link to a supporting article and discussion. Sometimes your non-journalism is arranged on a page in a list. Sometimes with sorted and scored with points assigned by the site's users, sometimes not.
This is a bizarre comment to read on a news aggregation and discussion site.
