Call Rick Sanchez!

I've been cranky for a while about the media's infatuation with Twitter, which I see as a lame attempt to get on the newest facet of social networking before it passes them by completely (read some of their blog posts about suggestions on how to "innovate" with Facebook and you'll see how clueless they are about the usefulness of modern Web-based journalism vehicles).

This article from a USC professor drops the shocker that his students use Facebook, not Twitter, and that he doesn't think Twitter will last. No surprise there.

What journalism institutions today need to do is stop following the 18-to-34-year-old crowd as they jump from fad to fad and instead concentrate on what journalism will look like in the future. Will people want a Twitter feed for their news? If you really think they will, concentrate on that. How about a Facebook-style system? OK, do that. Or, maybe, people will want the information in a solid, reliable way that doesn't jump around on new systems and rely on idiots such as Rick Sanchez reading over the TV airwaves what his viewers (people at home in their pajamas) think about issues.

Here's the point: People like Twitter right now, but it's not Twitter that's making the difference; it's the underlying push toward a new kind of media and a new way of getting news that is important. Journalists need to latch onto that and stop being distracted by shiny, new enterpreneuring, short-lived fads.