Mail Twitter Hypocrisy

Well established media outlets have a singularly inconsistent approach to what is generally known as social media: they can’t ignore it, many of those they talk about use it, and it provides a rich source of free information. But old school editors need to keep their readers buying papers, and so at the lair of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, word has gone out to do some smearing.

What about f***ing Twitter, c***?!?

Cometh the hour, cometh the downright miserable pundit: Robert Hardman, writer of Royal biography and “one of Britain’s most accomplished journalists” has produced a sneering and dismissive rant titled “Succour for the vain and vacuous: why I loathe Twitter”. After saying Young Dave wasn’t impressed with the medium (but he is now, of course) he concludes “Twitter has elevated inanity to a global art form”.

And although he concedes that so many have signed up to the concept, even the “Dalai Llama” [sic], “I have had a go at Twitter myself and would acknowledge that there have been more interesting paint-dryings”. Perhaps that’s because you’re such a boring SOB, Bob. And, as the man said, there’s more: “It is ... a celebration of vanity and vacuity ... encourages us to dwell on the superficial”.

He goes on (at length, not being constrained to 140 characters, you see): “The internet has brought untold blessings and advancements to the way we live. But I would not say that Twitter is one of them ... At best, it is a succinct method of despatching a brief round-robin ... More often, it just encourages us to be self-centred — to waste time and to become crashing bores”.

So now we know that those who spend their time trawling Twitter feeds are not worth one’s own valuable time. That, one has to also assume, includes media outlets for whom Twitter mining is a stock in trade, like the one reporting Demi Lovato Tweeting the supposedly inspiring message “Two years ago, I watched the ball drop on TV in rehab and cried my eyes out” to her fans (Who they? – Ed).

Or the media outlet that regurgitated the New Year Tweets of Nicole Kidman, Mariah Carey, Melissa Rycroft and Sofia Vergera as a “news item”. That must be in the “crashing bore” category, surely? And what of the media outlet that has gone overboard trawling the Twitter feeds of the Kardashian family after Kim Sodding Kardashian declared her pregnancy yesterday (HERE, HERE and HERE, folks)?

Will Robert Hardman be stepping up to the plate to condemn the re-publisher of the thoughts of Kim, Khloe, Kourtney and anyone else Kardashian related? Well, that might be a difficult one for him or anyone else at the Mail, because the media outlet responsible for all that Twitter regurgitation is none other than the Mail itself. Yes, while its pundits slag off Twitter, its hacks trawl the medium for free copy.

New year, no change: Paul Dacre and Martin Clarke are still stinking hypocrites.