There are those writers whom I deem worthy of my spare change and hardly-earned cash. It's a simple transaction of they write and I pay to read it. And then there are those writers who spend more time on Twitter, trying out their bad comedy acts and or transmit intermittent play-by-play as a slower, less articulate alternative to radio.
For those writers, I wish that they would stop playing with their mobile devices and take the time to read Roy MacGregor's excellent piece from The Globe and Mail on Saturday.
The obsession with “content” has meant next to no time for substance. In far too many cases, tweeting and blogging have become a form of public masturbation, where size matters – as in number of hits or followers one can attract. Hits, newspapers will one day realize, are not circulation.
Mr. MacGregor would be wise to pass this along to his fellow professional writers, many of whom enjoy large numbers of followers.
On Twitter, I can read David Shoalts of the Globe and Mail make fun of nearly everything he sees -- he must travel with a photo of Gary Bettman so that the NHL commish is always in his view -- and this writer's Twitter feed only detracts from whatever serious work he might do for The Globe and Mail.
A question. When professional writers are limited to 120 characters, why is sarcasm the first thing on their minds when they hit Twitter. And then why is play-by-play their alternative?
Not that sarcasm is bad. But it requires a good set up, and you can hardly get that on Twitter when one writer's Tweets mingle with/are buried by thousands of other incoming Tweets per second as you try to compose your next 120 characters.
(It reminds me of the scene in "Barney's Version," where Mordecai Richler writes of Barney Panofsky trying to read a newspaper account of the previous night's Canadiens game as his second wife attempts to discuss something with him. I don't have the book in front of me anymore, but you should run out and get it and flip to the point where Richler has Barney reading one word, his wife gets in five, another word, another five from his wife, etc. Classic and, I would argue in a court of law, quite realistic.)
To see a real pro attempt and deliver on sarcasm, take note of this line, set up, attribution and all, from Charles S. Pierce, who was writing about The National Sports Daily on Grantland:
But the point was that, for perhaps the last time, a publication launched itself with the proposition that its journalism would be something of great value, and that, therefore, it should pay people in a fashion commensurate with the value it would place on their work. This is what sent America's sports editors straight to the fainting couch, clutching their pearls and moaning like Aunt Pittypat Hamilton at the fancy-dress ball. The National wasn't shy about raiding people's rosters, and even a lot of writers who didn't come aboard were able to leverage the offer into handsome new deals with their current employers. Pretty soon, the bellowing from the Associated Press Sports Editors was audible on Neptune, and the APSE was pretty much a dog's breakfast as regards The National for the entire 18 months of its existence. Very few of our pieces were considered for the organization's annual awards, and, when we finally folded, Bill Dwyre of the Los Angeles Times, one of those people who (to borrow a line from Christopher Hitchens) fancied himself a wit and was half-right, assigned one of his columnists to dance on our freshly dug grave. A couple hundred people thrown out of work, and this guy decides to spike the ball in the end zone. Stay classy, big guy.
You cannot successfully pull that off Twitter, at least without your main thought, in this case, Mr. Pierce's views on Mr. Dwyre, getting lost in a sea of bad jokes and play-by-play, perhaps like these from Mr. Shoalts:
Mark Messier introduced to big MSG cheer. He did NYC marathon today in 4 hr, 14m. Wonder what D. Byfuglien's time would be.
Jets D Oduya put a nice long pass right on the tape of Ranger winger Fedotenko. Pavelec bailed him out with a big save.
Tanner Glass good thump on Rangers D Jeff Woywitka.
Mr. Shoalts is by no means the only one doing this. Adrian Dater and Damien Cox are two others that come to mind, and I am sure if you wanted to spend the time, you could think of a few more. But don't. Instead, go out and find more work from Charles S. Pierce and Mordecai Richler.
Messrs Pierce and Richler, some of that money you earned was from me. Your work is/was worth every penny.
Now I am putting away my soapbox. Back to work.
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