When did Twitter become the news?

The Sunday papers are always very light on news and heavy on ridiculousness, but who would have thought Twitter would bear the brunt of Sunday silliness this weekend? Well, actually, maybe everyone.

The press has an odd relationship with Twitter, even though many of its most talented columnists are right in the middle of it. It’s not quite the latest threat to the fabric of civilisation like the internet was back in the day, and still is to a certain extent to publications like the Daily Mail. No, Twitter is generally sniggered at, marginalised and slightly feared, like a teenage child into Proust and black nail varnish.

But as with the aforementioned misunderstood child, people can’t stop sighing at and talking about it. This weekend, papers such as The Sunday Times and the Telegraph were keen to make front-page news of a very minor spat Stephen Fry had with a fellow Tweeter, who dared to call the almighty Fry ‘boring’. Imagine if someone had stopped in the street and called Fry boring to his face. Would anyone know or care apart from Stephen Fry? No. Twitter’s the story here, not Fry.

Twitter’s reaction to anything and everything is now news in itself, ever since it made a name for itself by being loud and obnoxious on issues such as the Jan Moir article and the Trafigura debacle. It’s almost like the teenage child has gone out protesting and everyone else is whispering: “They’ll be into something else tomorrow, just you wait.”

For brands and personalities this means Twitter, always a minefield, is becoming even more tricky to deal with. Tweeters are getting used to mobilising, and the chaos effect is in full sway – one small trigger and a wave of negativity could come your way, with an eager press waiting to report the whole thing. Politicians in particular need to be very wary.

Our advice? Don’t believe the press. Twitter is not a new platform for the angry mob, so don’t dismiss it. It’s a matrix full of voices, subject to sway and flux, much like a microcosm of society itself. Take the rough with the smooth and don’t throw your toys out of the pram. Engage with the Twitterverse and treat it like a bunch of reasonable human beings rather than a witch hunt; a lot of the time frustration at a lack of any other outlet is behind the rush to Twitter and Facebook. But most of all, don’t ignore it or treat it like a hysterical irrelevance. This is your constituency.