My Three-Day "Tweet-kend"

My first "viral" tweet began with a bang...and ended with nary a mention.

Back in September 2012, I posted an item documenting my experiences (and frustrations) with Twitter, the 140-character or less micro-blogging platform where anybody associated with journalism is supposed to readily adopt and participate on a regular basis. In that entry, I pondered if it was a "one-way street"--where everyone has something to say but no one bothers to respond (a old Current TV video describes it as a place "where you talk to no one--and everyone"). I use my account primarily for announcing when I upload new items or if I want to promote/document something I might be seeing/experiencing at the time. The "tweet" you see above happens to be the first "viral" one I can claim and I will get around to describing its origin when I detail how my recent three-day Memorial Day "tweet-kend" played out beyond the jump below.

"Talking Heads" are Not News Anchors

As much as I might like them in their regular roles, Ed, Al and Chris are not at their best when anchoring live news events.

This past Monday, our nation experienced its most recent mass shooting tragedy when 12 workers at a US military installation in the District of Columbia were killed and 14 were wounded when a lone gunman opened fire on a crowded atrium within the Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters building at the beginning of the work day.  At around 8:20AM, Aaron Alexis, a 34-year old defense subcontractor and former Navy reservist, drove his rental car inside that defense-related installation with a recently purchased shotgun and 24 rounds of ammunition (he would also acquire a 9mm semi-automatic pistol from a security officer he shot on his way to that electronically protected main building and possibly one more from an internal official) and made his way to a strategic position on a 4th floor walkway overlooking that congested food service area during their breakfast service.  Facility and district law enforcement officials responded within 2-3 minutes of the 911 call and eventually encountered Alexis along the walkway.  After wounding an officer and at the end of an approximately 30 minute standoff, he was fatally shot and killed at around 9AM.  These are facts that, in the span of 24 to 48 hours after-the-fact can be succinctly conveyed in a 12-line area of a blog; however, in the immediate aftermath of such a rapidly evolving event, brevity and clarity is nearly non-existent and these scenarios pose significant impediments to those who have been trained to tell us the news.  A much more dire situation occurs when we must endure this process with people who have no formal journalism backgrounds and must ramble on because they must fill their outlet's unlimited air time and I personally witnessed that embarrassment on Monday afternoon on MSNBC.

Keith Olbermann on ABC's "This Week"

(NOTE: This is only meant to be a short posting and is not a full-fledged follow-up to my previous entry about Current TV that will come at a later date.)

Keith Olbermann, center, joined (from left to right) George Will, Peggy Noonan, Donna Brazile, and Matt Dowd on the roundtable for today's "This Week" program (graphic courtesy of ABC News)

Earlier this week, I read that Keith Olbermann, recently of Current TV, was going to appear on ABC's "This Week" Sunday morning political news and analysis program as a panelist for their roundtable discussion today.  Other than an appearance on CBS's Late Night with David Letterman the Tuesday after his firing (and a sighting in New York City's Central Park this past week), Keith has tried to stay out of the public spotlight and this would be his 'reemergence' in journalistic/opinion circles.  I normally tune in for "Face the Nation" at that time but I did switch over to ABC to see how he would do in this setting.