Anyway, the cause of my whinging was a media event happening in London.

It took over my Twitter feed and, whereas I normally get irritated by waves of hashtagged tweets, this time the event seemed of such importance to those attending that they’d gone beyond that.

Conversations were often unprefixed by @ and weren’t even hashtagged.  It couldn’t be filtered out. It felt like those involved were saying…the interesting people are here – why don’t the rest of you just go and watch the telly until we’re done.

My annoyance was more than just a bunged up tweet feed. As someone never resident in London it’s very easy to feel excluded from the capital clique.  The impression that: *Everyone* means *everyone we know* isn’t far away.

And as for live tweeting in general…

Well I think live tweeting has found its place.  Live tweeting is for revolutions.  Live tweeting is for events of genuine international significance.

If your event isn’t likely to make prime time breaking news then maybe you should rethink.

Maybe it isn’t of the significance you think it is or hope it to be.  Maybe, to put it bluntly, neither are you. Ask yourself how much is info and how much is ego?

Workshops, conferences, parties, launches, presentations and talks are simply not important enough to be live tweeted.

Live blog instead.

Don’t disrespect the live tweet. Save it for revolutions.

They should be able to handle a comment box, a tweet feed etc etc. They should be able to community build, take part in discussions, respect their readership.

A tech journalist, for example, should be able to talk tech – without reverting to calling people “you fucking morons“.

So witness this tirade from Tech Crunch contributor Milo Yiannopoulos:

Would you want to read this man?  Would you want to employ this man?  Would you want to work with this man?

I understand he’s taking part in the upcoming TEDx Liverpool event.  Do you really want him there?

Is he trying to carve out a role as some kind of tech shock jock?  Or is he just a wanker?

Turns out it was a promotion from a company of the same name that was giving away an Apple computer a day and all you had to do was add #moonfruit to your tweets.

Now, I don’t blame these guys.  Smart marketing move – and as I write it’s the top trending topic on Twitter (#iranelection is 7th) so they got it right.

But people mindlessly typing in #moonfruit every few minutes?

Do you know this organisation?  Do you know if they do good work? Do you care?  Are you really happy to metaphorically reply uh huh okay as they yank your chain and wave Apple products under your nose?

So one free Mac a day?  Just what are your chances of winning?  How many #moonfruit tweets does it take hit number one in trends?

And just what wouldn’t you tweet for a freebie?  How long before all tweets come to you…courtesy of #mcdonalds (tweet this and get a free quarter pounder).  Where do you draw the line? Is your 140 characters for hire?

This is has got marketing bandwagon written all over it – they’re all so going to jump on this.

Before long every tweet will be squeezed up in order to hashtag another brand name at the end on the off chance of a free latte or new Barf Flavoured Coca Cola.

Hey we got a new way to talk about what *we* like for a change…oh hang on…Starbucks want me to give them a plug.  Mmmm I got a mocha with extra hazelnut syrup. Ah well free speech – fun while it lasted.

This isn’t a charity.  It’s people making money and fooling you into advertising their product.

Would you give these people an ad on your blog for the promise of being added to thousand to one draw for an iPod?

What is up with you people?

Bios:

“….and a coffee addict” – I’m just so busy and successful I work all hours

“…a coffee addict and a mom” – (USA) I’m just so busy, so successful, I work all hours but I’m sooo accessible and folksy too.

“…social media evangelist” – Don’t really have that much experience in anything but I think Facebook is pretty cool and this Twitter thing seems simple. Please follow me.

“…I’m trying to get 10,000 followers in 10 days” – I’m a social media consultant with obsessive compulsive disorder.

In Tweets:

“…cool they have wifi at JFK” - Everybody, look where I am! And they said I’d never amount to anything. Up yours to everybody who knew me at school. God I hope everyone retweets this.  Whoooooo hoooooo!

“Twitter blah blah signal/noise ratio blah blah”-  (Normally not actually on Twitter but makes it to Twitter via third party).  Means: Just haven’t been arsed to get my head around Twitter – it’s all people saying what they had for breakfast, right?  And, anyway, I’m too busy and too successful to be tweeting – though I am thinking of getting a consultant to do it for me.

“I’m tweeting this from my new iNob” – Ha ha look what I’ve got and you haven’t.  I queued from midnight to get it.  To be fair there was never any suggestion that there was going to be a shortage so I could have bought one the next day in my lunch hour – but then tweeting that tweet on the very morning of their release wouldn’t have been nearly so cool. Besides an iNob is a justifiable expense cos I’m just so busy and so successful.

“…really ought to think about going home” – Yes I am still at work while you’re all watching the telly at home and I hate you for it.  Then again hopefully if you read this you’ll think that I’m just so busy and so successful.

“I’m at #egoevent – going to get a coffee later if anyone wants to say hi” – I’m here. You’re not and I’m going to tweet, tweet, tweet.  They’re all social media types but I’m still going to tweet more than anyone else. Everyone’s going to want to know who I am. I’m going to be the best Tweeter here…oooh I’m going to tweet again, right now. “ooh they have #lattes and #bagels”

RT (nice thing someone said about me) – I’m a wanker. But a very busy and successful wanker.

“I only follow people I know” – I’m very busy and very successful and if I don’t know them – trust me – they really aren’t worth knowing.

“Cutting my toenails” – Twitter asks what are you doing and so I tell it and nothing, NOTHING at all.  I still really don’t get this.

“Hey @stephenfry – loved you on QI last night” – Oh mention me please mention me. Just one little tweetlet with my name in it – go on. You’re an English treasure.  (Phenomenon known as Fry fawning or “frawning”. Frawning is now a universal term and can be applied to any instances of celebrity crawling.)

“Hey @bigshot great to catch up with you last night” – I added the “hey” so you’d all see this – look who I was with.  Me.  Man, I am just so busy and so successful. I really think think he liked me too. Wonder if I can add him on Facebook.  Hmm. No, be cool.  I’ll leave it a couple of days.

“Hey great #morning on #train to work needing #coffee #tuesday” – look at me with the hash tags – I sooo get this.

“I’m such a geek” – Err I’m a lawyer but my boss says this computer lark is where the cash is.  Gotta show I’m down with the kids – thinking of a manga avatar soon. Wonder if I can get away with calling myself an Apple “fanboy” on my bio. Oh Christ, just deleted everything.  Sh*t. B*llocks. F*ck.  Better call IT.

“Yes, I’m finally on Twitter“ – I work for the Guardian and only two months ago I wrote a piece about this being a fad perpetuated by airheaded egotists and then (sh*t, sh*t, sh*t) the boss made us all sign up.  It’s the future he says.  Now I’m here.  Oh the shame.  Deep breath. So tell me again – what’s a retweet? My life is unbearable.

So, first we should sum up:

It doesn’t look good for the future of newspapers or even international news channels.

Foreign correspondents numbers are dwindling.

Budget cutting and churnalism makes it’s preferable for media to believe official sources and reproduce them accordingly.

And then we have NGOs:

People based in assorted hotspots often dealing day-to-day with the kind of problems and issues that will escalate to become “international incidents”.

People who are not only up-to-date with the issues but who understand the regions they are in.

People with opinions that are backed by a real knowledge of not only what is happening now but also how this point was reached.

People with access, as we all have, to easy-to-use publishing tools – from blogs to Twitter taking in embeddable videos and podcasting along the way.

People in marketing will tell you that all employees have marketing duties.  That just got bigger – we’re all potential reporters too.

Key overseas development and aid workers should all be blogging and these blogs must be made available via the websites of their employers.

Then, the most important bit, their employers should have the media savvy to pull out the best bits and give them the profile they deserve.

Currently we have tools but not the ambition nor the understanding of the opportunities.  Most NGOs recognise the value of blogging and YouTube and, if you’re lucky Twitter too. Their users are generating – but it’s frequently just information headed down a black hole.

NGOs international comms people need to be news editors.  The department should be the news desk.

It’s not enough to be signing up to these tools.  They should be trawling them for the good stuff that is of genuine interest and international importance and yes, for the words and pictures that promotes their viewpoint.

With all this information – they need news lists.  What will be our lead story?  Where are the picture stories? The human interest tales?  Where are the funnies?

They need to keep one eye on the mainstream media – what might they be interested in?  Where can get our people into the traditional media to gain wider exposure for the issues and incidents where we focus?

But also – how can NGOS effectively become their own newspapers?  How can they start not only influencing news agendas but actually reach a position where they can set the agenda themselves?

For awareness, for advocacy, for fundraising, for profile.

If all you are doing is providing platforms then you aren’t doing enough.  You are just generating information.  Now you have to work out how to bring attention to it and share it.

How to engage.

Recognise where the stories are and where the interest lies and make them your splashes and page leads.

Then allow the general public to ask their own questions. Let them spread your stories.  Interactivity and debate are your friends. Don’t worry about dissent – celebrate discussion.

Follow those official sources too and see how they tally with your own.  Compare and contrast where needed.

Point fingers at the uninformed and those with damaging self-serving agendas.

Be the watchdog that tells us all when the official line is manipulated or just plain wrong.

Our aid and development workers are now foreign correspondents.

Our NGO communications departments are news desks.

Our NGOs are international news channels.

The papers with their deals (and here ), their hypocrisy and their dubious owners?

If we’re taking sides, while not disputing the importance of any of the expenses reporting, does their ability to publicise this situation make the media the right people to guide our next steps?

If we’re talking social media power do blogs only become relevant when main stream media recognises them?  In which case how do we ensure that they filter them as we would?

How do we know that our user generated content is not being, well, used?

As for traditional media, ask yourselves why there are no Reuters stories, ever, about Bilderberg? It’s frightening and when it comes to keeping rich people in-check, so far the papers haven’t shown much interest.  Even less when the finger is pointing at them.

Without wanting to get too far into David Icke territory – there is always the question, just whose bidding are the papers doing?

So what of social media?  Can social media ever have a lobbying presence strong enough to ensure newspapers reflect the needs and wants of the population rather than imposing their own agendas?

Is this just the point where we pull back the curtain and see how the machine works? Perhaps everything didn’t just get worse – it got better.  At least now we know the size of the problem.

The media IS democracy for good or bad.  They are arguably a more important cog than the politicians themselves. Ideas are filtered to appease the media.  The media then sells the ideas to us. It’s a system that is now creaking badly.

Because, if it’s as bad right now as we are told it is, then who let it get this bad?  While the media has been collectively whinging about dole scroungers and migrants the mega rich and the mega powerful have been making merry unchecked.

Wasn’t someone supposed to keep an eye on these people?  Just how much privilege can you buy?

We have to hope that the number of people with democratic power, beyond simply voting based on skewed information, grows exponentially.

What is for sure, is that we are closer to “revolution”, whatever that might look like, than in any point during my life time.

It won’t take blood and it probably doesn’t even require taking to the streets.

It just needs us to take back democratic power – not from the politicians but from the media.

No one voted for the media.

Not enough people want print and they won’t pay for online news.  So it’s all over.

Well it seems unlikely that these huge brands will absolutely disappear but certainly they are going to be unrecognisable compared to the inky behemoths they once were.

But you know what?  I still think you could start a newspaper tomorrow that would thrive.  In print, possibly – but certainly on line. You just have to get it right.

I’ve spent my adult life reading papers that (to paraphrase Morrissey) say “nothing at all about my life” and still I’ve read them.  I’ve sworn at them, been irritated by them, chucked them across the room but they’ve still taken my cash.  Imagine how much I might have invested in them if I really liked them?  If I really thought they cared about me and actually reflected what I wanted to read?

So let’s start with content –if it’s newspapers that have killed newspapers, what will sell?

In terms of a British paper – let’s get radical but saleable radical.  Most people don’t live in the capital but all current newspapers do.  So let’s change that.  Let’s be centrally based. Most “national” newspapers have a “northern correspondent” covering everything above Birmingham.  It’s almost too incredible to consider.  But they do.

Can anyone even start to justify that?

I’m not saying as much happens in Newcastle as happens in London – but let’s be proportionate.

And let’s tell our staff to remember who they are writing for.  It’s a widely held belief that the Guardian is read by teachers and social workers – and yet it’s written by North London luvvies. Can we hear less about you and your organic-veg and bistro lifestyle and more about the people you are writing about?

If they aren’t all based in London they must start to realise that it’s not all a wilderness up there.  We don’t all eat Turkey Twizzlers and have tattoos.

So while we’re at it – what else is out?  Let’s do for reality TV – people can see that everywhere.  So let’s not bother.  Royal Family?  Let’s keep it to a minimum.

Let’s have no big fat proprietors who don’t pay tax but point the finger at dole scroungers.  In fact, let’s do away with as much negativity as we can.  Let’s not make the poorest, least able members of our society to defend themselves, our scapegoats.

It’s bullying and it reads like bullying.  Let’s face it – being the nasty party didn’t do the Tories any good.  People don’t like it.

Arts – now that’s good.  It’s not that we don’t like celebrity news but how about we try to make it a little more stimulating.  Give me film news and music reviews.  Lots of it.  Let’s have trailers and free downloads on the website.

Let’s have theatre – but not just…you guessed it…London theatre.  Let us cover ballet and opera too but let’s be realistic about the numbers of people who actually watch this.  Let’s go for the intelligent end of mass market.

Let us be bright, fashionable, funny and modern – but let’s not have that mean trivial.  Let us have gravitas without being smug or self important.

So politically where will it lie?  Let’s make it central.  But wait, here’s the twist – let’s make it pre Thatcher central.  Mandelson and New Labour might all be “Thathcherties now” but that doesn’t mean we all are.  Let’s not be party political.

Can we be green without being Guardian green?  In other words let’s not make Green entirely a consumer issue or a reason to be snobbish about how our carrots are grown.

And let’s stand up for what is right.  Really right.  Not a matter of opinion.  Not bringing balance to an unbalanced subject.  We don’t have to be the BBC. We don’t have to please both sides when one side is wrong – unequivocally wrong. Yes, I am thinking Iraq war here.

So let’s campaign for what is right.  Let us give us a voice to those who don’t normally get print space.  And when we campaign let’s not just see our readers as petition-fodder, let’s involve their ideas.  Let them spread the word and let them contribute and shape our arguments.

Let us be politically correct and proud of it.  But let’s not use our political correctness as a reason for sneering at others.

Snobbishness is out.  Always out.  Not tolerated.

No laughing at “chavs” here.

Let us re-examine the whole concept of what makes a story.  Dog bites man?  Okay but before we worry about the angle and intro let us first look at whether we might potentially misrepresent or fail to keep the story in proportion.

Is our story mean spirited?  Is it in the public interest?

The world is getting smaller – let’s reflect that from a media point of view but that doesn’t just mean slavishly reporting only what happens in America.  HBO and Obama are cool but that doesn’t mean we have to have a USA love-in.  It’s all got a little bit embarrassing recently.

While we at it let’s not demean international visits by describing in depth what the first ladies are wearing.  Please.  No more. It demeans them.  It demeans the readers.  It demeans the writers.  This isn’t the sixties – they aren’t Jackie.  Can we move on?

Let us be British.  But genuinely British (not just English, not just London) and let us be aware of where we are coming from, our history, our culture but we should also be the first to criticise ourselves when necessary.

Let us love our readers.  Let our readers be right.  Let us use their information, their thoughts, their correspondence and shape our ideas with it.  No one bitches about them not in print, not in comment boxes, not in meetings, not in the newsroom.

So how does it work?

Okay, there’s no turning the clock back – we’re not talking a massive number of employees – but we are talking a huge number of writers from everywhere.

So let’s start with those staffers.  Obviously they are going to have to have blog, social media, and in particular RSS skills.  They are going to need to know how to trawl and trawl well for news.

They’ll need to know what is trending on Twitter.  When it kicks off in Bangkok they are going to have to have a few bloggers lined up to give on-the-ground reports.  They will need judgement to decide what is real.

Let us cherish the bloggers we turn to for content.  Let us credit them – let us reward them as we can afford and as they deserve.  Many may work for hits – but big stories should equal real pay.  Others may well work for opportunities – let the bloggers of today be our staffers of tomorrow.

We will have a duty not just to find the best information but also to communicate with its providers.  Community is all with these papers.  Nothing goes in without a comment box – writers are expected to take part in the debate.  They are there to read and learn too – not just to justify.

Where we save on staffers we spend on investigative reporters.  We’re talking long-wins here.  Hacks we can let off the leash so that they come back with genuinely exclusive and fresh material.  This is 2009 so they can film it too.  We want more than just words – we want movies, and podcasts too.

While they are investigating let’s have them tweeting.  Let’s build anticipation for what they can find.  Let them ask followers for assistance. Let followers have a stake in their output.

Let’s be brave enough to take on the big guys.  Let’s not worry about that they could sue us – let’s worry about getting our fact absolutely right so they don’t.

But let’s get them right.  Every time.  Let us not print what we can “get away with” – let us print only what is right.

The business model ?  Let’s be switched on. Let us not miss a trick. If we review CDs then let us also sell them.  Books too.  Let us sell everything that fits our readers – from holidays to clothing.  But remember – editorial comes first – no thinly veiled advertising features.

And those investigate reporters – let’s squeeze books out them.  Cinema-release documentaries too.  Let’s build our brand and have it stand for something. Let us do what is right.

Low staff means costs are low.  As a “public interest” newspapers can we attract wider funding?  Can we do that without being beholden to them?

Maybe.

And reflecting my belief that its “newspapers that have killed newspapers” I understand I offer no real new business model here.  Except maybe a business model of excellence and a loss of arrogance.

I think it can work.

Update:

I was honoured to see a link to this piece from One Man & His Blog and really enjoyed the accompanying movie featuring Alan Rusbridger of the Guardian.  I was surprised that his arguments weren’t at odds with my own.  It’s an interesting watch – as OM&HB says the good stuff is about 1.53 in.

GEORDIE MESSIAH STAGES PATENTLY TRANSPARENT PR RUSE, 7,500 DUPED

Newcastle United’s players found out exactly what their fans think of them this morning when a disappointing crowd of just 7,500 gullible Geordies turned up for an open first-team training session at St James’ Park. With the sun shining, the schools broken up for Easter and unemployment figures on Tyneside approaching a 20-year high, experts had been predicting a record attendance for the pathetically transparent propaganda exercise that traditionally follows the appointment of each new Geordie Messiah. But despite the recent installation of local legend Alan Shearer as The Chosen One, a disillusioned Geordie public voted with their feet, opting to ignore the overpaid wasters who have dragged the club into the Premier League relegation mire and head for the city’s pubs, betting offices and tattoo parlours instead.

Despite the low turn-out, the reaction of those who did turn up at St James’ Park was surprisingly positive considering how shabbily they’ve been treated in recent years. “A lot iv people, spehully bairns, cannit afford the exorbitant ticket prices fo’ Newcassel matches, see it’s canny fo’ them tuh be yeble tuh cum alang tuh the groond, see their heeroos in the flesh an’ shoot abuse at them,” enthused one overweight topless man who appeared so down on his luck he’d literally lost the shirt from his backs. “Way-aye man,” chorused his Brown-drinking friends, who had also gone shirtless for the day in an act of solidarity.

The truth is the people who swear by Twitter are using it for a very specific purpose.

They’re not just following celebrities and they haven’t just scoured their email address books to see which friends are online.

They’ve searched, not for people they know,  but instead for people they want to know.

Aks yourself, why is Twitter not popular with young kids?

It’s not popular because so much of what we used Twitter for is directly related to our chosen careers .

So we’re looking for people that can help. Help us.  Help our employers and, on occasions, help our colleagues too.

It works incredibly well.  But there is a downside.

Twitter is not a place for arguments.  There are a number of reasons.  Firstly arguing in 140 character exchanges is just plain irritating.  It’s worse still if you’re not the arguer but you’re still having to put up with long exchanges taking over your Twitter feed.

The main reason, of course, is that we’re looking to make friends and contacts.  We’re agreeing and we’re doing favours.

People get evangelical about Twitter – often talking of its power not just for communication but also for social change.  True.  We’re seemingly all on the same side and we disagree very little about how we want our world to evolve.

It’s no wonder that the life coaches are flocking to Twitter.

This non-disagreement ethos leads not only to people working together but often playing follow-my-leader too.

Not so long ago it was manga avatars, then it was blacked out avatars.  Then red noses for Comic relief.  We want to be accepted.  We don’t want to be different or exclusive.  Twitter is all about the inclusive.

Before anyone argues that there is debate on Twitter – think again.  There’s ideas and there’s agreements.  People might retweet what works or ignore what doesn’t – but very few are challenged.

Arguably, as far as social media goes it’s fair to say that no one can make a good enough guess about the future to dismiss anyone else.  Each point of view is to be listened to.

But where does this non debate culture lead us?  Do we just unfollow those who we disagree with and then sit around agreeing with everyone else?  Do we create little communities without the function or desire to challenge each other?

Is all this following and working together, fabulously productive or do we lack someone telling us when we’re wrong?

In short, is arguing plain and simple Twitter suicide?

Oh and try pressing this link and seeing how much you can read without starting to feel queasy.

I started my first blog the day after I read The Baghdad Blogger.

Blogging came into its own at that time – it was also the clearest example of how little newspapers were reflecting their readership. The people didn’t support war but, for the most part, the papers did.

So people went looking elsewhere for their news.

The war galvanised the blogosphere and it’s hard to imagine any real opposition to that war without them. Otherwise we’d have been stuck with photocopied newsletters, texts and emails.

Move forward a few years and social media is stronger and it’s no longer just about blogging.

It’s more than just words now. Interactivity doesn’t end with the comment box. You can be an frequent social media user and have never blogged a word.

And beautifully, in the shape of Barack Obama, we have a symbol of the strength of social media as well as an individual popular and powerful enough to do its bidding.

He starts his presidency at a time of another type of conflict. Recession is here and is likely to be the worst in living memory. The situation is ether so bad, or news values so screwed, that climate change is struggling to get a look in.

On Saturday, four days before the G20 riots of Financial Fools Day, the people from the pressure groups, the unions and the NGOs marched peacefully. I read countless times that their message was too thinly spread to have any effect but Jobs, Justice, Climate seems pretty reasonable to me.

Without access to TV, I followed it, as I did the later riots, by Twitter.

Incredibly TV stations and the newspapers were still represented – but this time they were accompanied by thousands of other voices.

We no longer needed people to edit our news.

We no longer needed people to tell us what the story is.

Speaking at the rally, I knew Mark Thomas was good. I knew because *everyone* tweeting said he was. And I knew what he would be saying because I had been downloading his brilliant economy podcasts for weeks.

Recently he called a demo outside the Daily Mail to protest at the fact that the owner was resident in France and therefore paid no taxes. Imagine it, The Daily Mail – tax dodging and owned from overseas.

We should know this. We should know because it affects the weight of their words. It’s social media that is giving me this information – it’s not other newspapers.

Meanwhile, as the G20 continues there has been a whole stream of “Twitter came into its own..” articles.

The truth is – like blogging and Iraq, Twitter needed a cause.

There’s enough evidence already that if newspapers are to go then we can build something better.

There’s hope that with the right information we can finally make the right decisions.

Certainly with a wrecked economy and a discredited system, people have never been so open to change.

Could social media really be a tool in replacing the old ways? Could it play a part in bringing about a new ideology that keeps an eye on wealth distribution and accountability but also puts combating climate change at its centre?

It’s surely possible. Governments have always been more accountable to the media than the people – now we are the media. Individually and collectively we have more platforms than ever before to campaign for what we believe in.

This is not politics – this is anti-politics.

This is democracy with, for the first time, the most important democratic tool firmly in place – information. In the past we based our votes on information provided by our tax-dodging super rich media owners. You can’t make deals with governments and still claim to be objective.

Now it doesn’t have to be this way.

This isn’t Twitter coming of age – it’s the media only just starting to come of age. It’s not web 2.0 it’s media 2.0.

Who knows, those big media brands may yet survive in some form but they are going to have to change fast.

This massive information output may be like nothing we have seen before – but it *is* better informed, it *is* produced by the people it affects and it *is* in the hands of many more millions than before.

Its quality will be judged piece by piece by readers. Good, useful information will be shared and forwarded – the bad will either get shown up for what it is or be simply ignored.

This really is the revolution – a beautiful, bloodless, democratic, information-driven, people’s revolution.

It is being televised.

But it is also being linked, embedded, blogged, bookmarked, tweeted and retweeted.

* Picture from G20 Voices.