To Twitter?

Dick Howe Twitters.  So does Nir Rosen.

I state up front that I know Dick Howe well enough to recognize him on the street or in John McDonough's City Life studio and that I have exchanged a number of EMails with Nir Rosen, whose book I am presently reading, when I am not studying for my French Cinema and Culture class at UMass Lowell Continuing Education.

Mr Rosen, earlier this week, Tweeted in response to what has apparently turned out to be the gang rape of CBS News reporter Lara Logan in Cairo, Egypt, last Friday.  Ms Logan was rescued by some Egyptian Women and about 20 Egyptian Soldiers, who reunited her with her CBS News crew.

Let's be frank.  This was a terrible thing to happen to Ms Logan.

Journalist Nir Rosen, early on, sent out some Tweets that made light of the situation.  He has since been allowed to resign from his position at NYU and has been dropped from membership in at least one discussion reflector.  And, he went on Anderson Cooper's News Show to talk about what a "Jerk" he was.

The defense from Mr Rosen is that he fired off half cocked and that raises a question.  Is Twitter just too much of a hair trigger operation for serious people to use?  What do we owe those we talk to over the internet?

A reporter commented in another venue that he had been sent to cover the Article 32 Hearing against Major Nidal Hansan and was told to Tweet what was going on.  The problem was, one could not use the Internet while inside, listening, so there was an inherent conflict between collecting the news and Tweeting it.  This article from The Army Times talks to the Internet restriction at the Hearing.  Tweeting seems an inherently un-reporter like activity.

Then there is the question of the time sink that the Internet represents.  My wife from time to time comments to me about my being addicted to the Internet.  A friend of mine noted:

comments only reinforce the idea that the most precious resource, time, is being diverted by the new technology.

Curse you, Al Gore.

Regards  —  Cliff