Twitter: No substitute

It has become a sports fan’s dream toy, offering a window and connection into an athlete’s previously closed world. But Twitter will never be a substitute for good journalism, argues Anthony Tan.

By tweeting, you're taking power away from the journalist. I read this quote in an article about Shane Warne in last weekend's Sydney Morning Herald, titled 'The King of Spin'.

Clifford, considered the best-known publicist in the United Kingdom, continued his train of thought by saying: "The biggest bugbear to [celebrities] are stories which are damaging and possibly false. But this way [by tweeting], you eliminate that."

This remark is pretty rich, even from someone in the business of spin doctoring. Mostly because it works on the (false) assumption that whatever a celebrity tweets is the gospel truth.

As we know, celebrities – high profile athletes included – don't always tell the gospel truth, just as some less than scrupulous journalists fabricate or embellish stories to suit their needs. The biggest bugbear to celebrities, I believe, are not stories which are damaging and false, but damaging and true. Tiger Woods is a modern day case in point.

Don't get me wrong: I think Twitter's a wonderful communication tool, and in the time-poor, information rich zeitgeist most of us First World folk now live in, instant communication, collaboration and aggregation of thoughts and ideas via social networking is no better represented than via Twitter.

For the maniacal sports fan whose fervour – Tiger's spate of indiscretions aside – rarely atrophies (infidelity? alcoholism? no problem!) there is nothing better than having an instant and personal connection to your idols.

However, bypassing the press and communicating solely with your legion of followers only gets you so far.

I remember at the 2009 Giro d'Italia, Lance Armstrong decided he'd had enough of us hacks after a few days and decided to stop communicating with the press – period. (At least till the Tour de France, anyway.) I felt a particular empathy towards my colleague Juliet Macur from the New York Times, who had ostensibly been sent to Italy to cover the Armstrong beat (and who by the end of the Giro, probably wanted to beat Lance, literally).

Armstrong used Twitter instead and took videos of himself with various team-mates in the back of his team bus, which by my estimation were pretty lame. His lockdown against the media backfired – it only augmented his controlling nature, and made him look like a spoilt brat who wanted only reams of sycophantic sludge written about him by those so-called journalists he allowed into his inner circle.

The trouble with Twitter is that for the celebrity Рor faux c̩l̬bres Рit heightens their narcissism and perceived sense of worth. The more followers, the greater one's popularity Рor so a vain-as-Shane person is led to believe (in case you're wondering, as of 9.30 p.m. Monday, Warne had 564,336 followers).

And if one were so self-absorbed, why wouldn't you think that?

In Spun Out, Paul Barry's biography of the compulsive texter-tweeter, he asks you to close your eyes and imagine life in Warne's shoes in his bowling heyday: "You're the best in the world in the one thing that matters to you. You're cheered by the crowd… feted by team-mates. You're mobbed by women wherever you go. Is it any wonder you think the world revolves around you?"

At least at one point, Warne was celebrated for something other than his new look, which the Guardian newspaper described as "slimmed, buffed, tweaked, styled and waxed into a marginally hairier clone of Ming the Merciless". Vying for fourth spot and with more than 10.5 million Twitter acolytes is the self-confessed – and obsessed – queen of self-promotion, Kim Kardashian, who readily admits she has no perceptible talent and has become famous for nothing, yet appears set to take US president Barack Obama's mantle before too long.

First to third is Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry. Lance Armstrong is currently 81st with 3.1 million followers; Cadel Evans is ranked 4,377 with 120,000 followers.

I am nowhere with somewhere around 2,500 followers. Not that anyone was asking.

At an event as unwieldy for the reporter as the Tour de France, no matter how many people you have on the ground, you cannot be at all places at all times. Twitter comes into its own as an invaluable resource, providing real-time updates of what transpired only seconds before, or post-stage, supply a stream of sentiments from riders and team staff that tweet pithy remarks from the massage or dining table.

But all of this hardly replaces journalism, or at least what good journalism should be: holding stakeholders to account, scrutinising their actions, and sometimes if necessary, attacking them.

Follow Anthony on Twitter: @anthony_tan