@brianstelter of The New York Times took note of @onemoreryan’s tweets last week as they related to CNN’s proposal to offer an alternative wire service to newspapers across the country.
Apparently, The Spokesman-Review editor was using Twitter to “broadcast” his opinions from inside CNN headquarters, a practice that Stetler (and presumably CNN) questioned.
CNN, a division of Time Warner, invited several dozen newspaper editors to Atlanta last week for a summit about its forthcoming news wire. Gatherings of journalists aren’t usually off-the-record affairs, but CNN probably didn’t expect each segment of the summit to be shared with the Web. Then again, the increasingly popular Twitter, which allows users to share short messages with others, sometimes acts as a wire service as well.
Personally, I find Twitter the ideal tool for public note taking at conferences and such. Although I wouldn’t opt to update from inside a client meeting. There are Tweet-free zones. I’m not saying that Pitts was wrong in doing so. It’s not clear whether or not the CNN presentation was intended to be confidential.
