I’ll admit, I was very anti-Twitter for many a month, despite friends pushing me to join the movement. I never really saw the point of knowing every single move my friends were making.
But, I started to peek around a bit and discovered it was a great way to get a little more plainspeak from major journalists and breaking news before it hits the mainstream. I added myself to the twitter-nation and today it actually paid off a bit.
I noticed Jake Tapper was tweeting(is that right? I’m still working on twitter lingo) from the President’s Afghanistan event. It seemed like a good opportunity to communicate some points to Jake that 3BP contributor Chobemaster and I were discussing, namely the hypocrisy in Obama’s claim that his mission to increase the troops in Afghanistan is neither new nor narrow. To my surprise, Tapper responded:
The point of all this?
Twitter works. It enables anyone with an internet connection the opportunity to directly share your opinions with the messagemakers of the mainstream media and the politicians developing policy. And, provided you make a point that interests them, communicate back and forth on the point of debate.
Now, the Twitter Nation is still full of people that simply use it follow their friends and keep abreast of whether they are sitting in their office or taking a break to go to the crapper. But there really is a higher purpose behind it. Give it a shot.
