Yes, Writers Still Need to Be on Twitter
Elon Musk aside, Twitter is still important if you have a personal brand
I’ve written about why journalists who are not tenured at big institutions need to think about how they present themselves online and in public, and that the cumulative effects of their work and how they do this constitutes a “personal brand.” I understand why a lot of people find the concept cringey, but particularly if you’re a freelancer, it’s necessary if you want people to see and be invested in your work.
One of the recommendations I made was that journalists need to be on Twitter. It’s where your colleagues live online, and where a lot of agenda-setting discussion happens.
But now a narcissistic billionaire with a penchant for trolling is planning to buy the company and take it private, while loosening its moderation policies, which means that Twitter will become more of a cesspool and particularly hostile for women and minorities. I wrote yesterday in the New York Times that I think this is a bad decision, both ethically and on a business basis.
On Twitter, Musk defenders subsequently protested to me that Musk’s orientation toward free speech absolutism was really about things like whether outlets that publish misleading stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop would be…
