Hello there!

When I was at the stadium of my football club NEC Nijmegen last weekend, I was surprised to see that our star goalkeeper wasn’t in the lineup. I asked my friends about it, and they were dumbfounded: “You do know he’s been sold, right?”

As a journalist and avid news follower, it was my turn to be stunned as I stared at the pitch. How could I have missed this?

A mitigating factor is that I’ve recently become a father, so my life’s rhythm has shifted a bit, but here’s my conclusion: I deleted my Twitter account a few months ago, and as a result, I’m missing out on a lot. If you don’t visit a news site for half a day, it’s easy to miss a news item like this. The social media algorithm would have brought this news to my timeline - had I still been a-Twittering.

More and more journalists are wrestling with the question whether to still contribute to Twitter. The behaviour of Elon Musk as the platform’s owner, who has renamed it X, was the reason I deleted my profile. He fired most of the staff responsible for safety , has been spreading conspiracy theories, and allows the algorithm to amplify anger and animosity. Not to mention changes, such as reintroducing the gun emoji, while tweeting that "if current trends continue, civil war in Europe is inevitable"...

The bottom line, as The New York Times aptly summarised: Elon Musk is using Twitter to push his views, and Donald Trump. His endorsement conversation with the Republican presidential candidate this week only underscored this.

Charlie Warzel wrote a clear argument for The Atlantic, stating: Twitter won’t die. I think he’s right, because the combination of accumulated capital and the relevant expressions of institutions on Twitter are not easily abandoned. It pained me too, as over 15 years, I had curated an interesting list of accounts, and among my 3,000 followers were high-ranking politicians and opinion makers who sometimes amplified the reach of my journalistic messages.

If, as a journalist or even as a media outlet, you decide to abandon Twitter, you must accept that you’re actually going to miss something.

How can good journalism change and evolve?

On one of the news sites I follow, 500 new articles are published each day. So, it’s not so strange that I missed the departure of our star goalkeeper. Rasmus Kleis Nielsen says something interesting about this:

“We've transitioned from a world where media organisations were the gatekeepers to one where they still create the news agenda, but platform companies now control access to audiences.”

We cite this in a blog about the future of journalism, with the message: continue to adapt to the circumstances in which you are trying to reach your audience.

Read the blog

Top 5 questions about user needs

A bit different: since the beginning of the user needs projects, we’ve been receiving questions about the concept. Given everything we’ve developed over the past year, it might seem a bit complex for those just starting out. In the blog below, we answer the following questions:

  1. What exactly are user needs?
  2. Why do I need them?
  3. How do you start implementing user needs?
  4. I don’t think my team is ready for this. Any advice?
  5. Do user needs actually work?
Read the blog

READING TIPS

  • The news greatly influences how people perceive developments in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The Reuters Institute has published new research on this topic, revealing how people can develop a more nuanced understanding.
  • If you want to approach AI with a healthy dose of scepticism, Professor Melanie Mitchell’s newsletter is a good resource. She addresses questions like: has AI truly surpassed humans in performing basic tasks?
  • During the Olympic Games ceremonies, it became journalistically relevant once again: how many countries are there in the world? This video humorously explains that the United Nations' figure of 195 is, at the very least, limited.

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And with that, we've reached the end of this newsletter. It might be interesting to pose a question about the main topic: have you ever considered leaving Twitter or at least sharing fewer contributions there? Do you think that your news brand should turn its back on such a large social network under certain circumstances? I’m keen to hear more arguments and insights on this subject and am considering exploring it from a data perspective as well. After all, do you actually know how much Twitter contributes to the traffic on your website?

Wishing you a wonderful day, and until next time!

Stefan ten Teije

Content editor @ smartocto