What Are You Doing? Media Twitterers Can’t Stop Typing

Illustration by Stephen Kroninger; Photographs by Evan Agostini/Associated Press (David Gregory), NBC (Norah O’Donnell) and CNN (Rick Sanchez

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY writing in The New York Times, February 27, 2009

Left alone in a cage with a mountain of cocaine, a lab rat will gorge itself to death. Caught up in a housing bubble, bankers will keep selling mortgage-backed securities — and amassing bonuses — until credit markets seize, companies collapse, and millions of investors lose their jobs and homes.
And news anchors and television personalities who have their own shows, Web sites, blogs and pages on Facebook.com and MySpace.com will send Twitter messages until the last follower falls into a coma.
The Internet has revolutionized society by giving anyone an instant and unfiltered outlet for self-expression. But it has also turned journalism into a year-round, ever-updated “Dear Friends and Family” Christmas newsletter.
“I watched the Obama speech on treadmill after getting home late from daughter’s softball practice,” Rick Sanchez of CNN informed his Twitter community on Tuesday. “Now I’m going to study it on paper.”

Read the full piece here.