Twit Or Get Off The Pot

NYT TV critic Alessandra Stanley: 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.

But Mr. Gregory also seems to view Twitter as a diary for his inner musings: “It’s 830. Rehearsal done. Guests should arrive anytime now. This is a good time for me to go thru my q’s one last time. Maybe a bagel b4 air.” David Shuster, the host of “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” on MSNBC, is so eager to interact with potential viewers that he contacted a fictional character who had been created to monitor Twitter anonymously. “Hi, maria troffa (matroffa), David Shuster (Shuster1600) has requested to follow your updates on Twitter!” (There are no updates: that Maria Troffa doesn’t exist.)

Those who say Twitter is a harmless pastime, which skeptics are free to ignore, are ignoring the corrosive secondary effects. We already live in an era of me-first journalism, autobiographical blogs and first-person reportage. Even daytime cable news is clotted with Lou Dobbsian anchors who ooze self-regard and intemperate opinion.

On-air meltdowns are the new scoops. The CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli, a former trader, delivered a rant last week on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange about the Obama administration’s mortgage bailout proposal. Nobody at his network seemed concerned that Mr. Santelli had exceeded the bounds of news reporting. Instead, he was propped up by constant replays on CNBC and rival networks as a populist hero. It’s all too likely that he will be rewarded with his own show someday.

There are always some people who, given the chance, will respond to anything, even nothing.

I propose a companion Twitter dedicated to the memory of CNN's Larry King. "What are you wearing?" instead of "What are you doing?"