No One Wants Your Damn Twitter

Dear TV News Programmers,

Twitter, Facebook and their brethren are social networking media. Like many other items in the social spectrum, they are value-neutral and just because a lot of people use them does not mean they are interesting, worthwhile or even all that informative. Here are some other things that fall into the social strata:

• Your kid sister who really likes Lisa Frank stickers
• That weird neighbor who always wants to talk about high school baseball
• Your obnoxious relative who gets drunk and starts talking about the UFO conspiracy the White House is covering up so it can pass health care
• The hippie at the corner who never ever shuts up
• Lyndon LaRouche supporters

These people are the spice of life, you know? You don't always want them near you but they certainly make you think about how the world is. None of them, however, have any bearing on the news. News is supposed to be informative, and then your kid sister, the weird neighbor, your obnoxious drunk relative, the hippie at the corner and the Lyndon LaRouche people can all comment on it...on their own time. Their commentary is not news. I have a serious, sincere request for you:

Stop.

Please, just stop.

Stop treating Twitter and Facebook like they have anything to do with the news. You are feeding in to a culture of narcissistic banality that is literally killing our brain cells. Americans are notoriously ill-informed about the world around them, but frankly based on my extremely scientific method of listening to people around me, you have to add national and local issues to stuff we don't know anything about. In the time you spend daily on reading idiotic and criminally boring Twitter and Facebook posts, you could at the VERY LEAST inform people that, say, Scott Brown is in fact a junior Senator, or that Darfur is still a problem. THOSE THINGS ARE NEWS. THAT SOME DUDE IN SHREWSBURY WANTS THE STREET TO PLOW HIS STREET MORE BECAUSE HE PAYS TAXES IS NOT. GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER, WE HAVE SOME SERIOUS PROBLEMS THAT NEED WORK.

Love,

Me