{"id":355,"date":"2009-10-16T15:07:50","date_gmt":"2009-10-16T15:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp\/?p=355"},"modified":"2009-10-16T15:07:50","modified_gmt":"2009-10-16T15:07:50","slug":"lifes_a_twitch_part_3_the_jour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/2009\/10\/lifes_a_twitch_part_3_the_jour\/","title":{"rendered":"Life’s a Twitch, Part 3 (The Journalists)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though many, many more music journalists are on Twitter, these are the people I noticed interacting with the publicists I interviewed the most. Oodles of thanks to  @nightafternight<\/a>: Steve Smith, New York Times<\/i>, Time Out New York<\/i>;  @anastasiat<\/a>: Anastasia Tsioulcas, Gramophone<\/i>, Variety<\/i>; @gsandow<\/a>: Greg Sandow, Wall Street Journal, ArtsJournal; and <\/i>@sethcolterwalls<\/a>: Seth Colter Walls, Newsweek<\/i> for their answers. <\/p>\n

These interviews were conducted via Telex machine. Just kidding. <\/p>\n

___________________

How long have you been using Twitter? <\/b><\/font>
@nightafternight<\/a>:<\/i> Since April 2009.<\/p>\n

@anastasiat<\/a>: <\/i>I just went back & checked my profile–since Sept. 8, 2008. Huh. Had no idea it had been that long.<\/p>\n

@sethcolterwalls<\/a><\/i>: Since August 2008.<\/p>\n

@gsandow<\/a>: <\/i>Six to nine months, can’t remember exactly.<\/p>\n

Where you motivated by personal or professional reasons? <\/b><\/font>
@nightafternight<\/a>: <\/i>The two are largely inextricable in my experience, but personal was probably the initial catalyst.  The short answer is that I was frustrated by my inability to keep my blog updated on a reasonably regular basis, primarily as a result of the promotion and expanded workload I took on at Time Out<\/i> last August.  I very badly missed having a personal, interactive outlet for thoughts and observations that didn’t necessarily extend from either of my jobs, but wouldn’t necessarily exclude them, either, since they’re a large part of who I am. The long answer is here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

@sethcolterwalls<\/a><\/i>: My last job strongly encouraged that I take the plunge right around the
\ntime I was becoming curious about what was happening on Twitter. So
\nboth.<\/p>\n

@anastasiat<\/a>: <\/i>Both, honestly.<\/p>\n

@gsandow<\/a>: <\/i>Motivated by curiosity, and then by professional interests.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\nHave you even written a feature or review of an artist or concert that was brought to your attention via Twitter?<\/b><\/font>
@nightafternight<\/a>: <\/i>Not
\nthat I can think of offhand, no. But I’m absolutely positive that I
\nhave mentioned things on Twitter that led to others taking an interest
\nand following up on those topics.<\/p>\n

@anastasiat<\/a>: <\/i>I
\ndon’t think anything has come *directly* out of Twitter as of yet, but
\nit’s been a good way of tracking live performances, chart position,
\nnewsy bits, fan response, etc..<\/p>\n

@sethcolterwalls<\/a><\/i>:
\nNo, not yet. But just to confirm what Steve said: I definitely learn a
\nton from the @nightafternight feed. And I think (slash hope) the same 
\nsometimes occurs for others with regard to the things I tweet about.
\nNewsweek multimedia exclusives like Reich’s “Double Sextet” and a Sonic
\nYouth mashup were both RT’ed a bit. And I’m told Vijay Iyer was a
\ntrending topic for a couple seconds, after I put a stream of his MIA
\ncover on The Awl.
 
@gsandow<\/a>: <\/i>Well,
\nI don’t do much journalism these days. But I constantly learn about new
\nthings on Twitter, and meet new people. Example. I saw that a cellist
\nnamed Peter Gregson was giving a solo concert at Twitter headquarters.
\nIt was short, of course, and the terrific program (mostly 20th century
\nand new) could be written in 140 characters. I happened to be online
\nwhen the concert took place, and watched the video feed. The guy can
\nreally play, so I DMed him and congratulated him.
 
That led to
\nsome further messaging. He’s British, happened to be in NY the next
\nday. We had coffee. Turns out he’s an inspiring musician, in his 20s,
\nwith all kinds of ideas. This past summer he was hired by the BBC Proms
\nto develop things on their website that younger people would care
\nabout, especially participatory things. He says the % of younger people
\nin the audience kept rising as the Proms continued. He gives concerts
\nin specially equipped spaces. The audience can text or tweet comments
\nwhile he’s playing, and the comments are displayed on a video screen.
\nThat leads to people talking back and forth about the concert while
\nit’s going on.
 
So Peter and I had coffee. The next day, he came
\nand spoke to my Juilliard class on the future of classical music, where
\nthe students just loved him, and found him inspiring. Two days after
\nI’d first encountered him on Twitter.<\/p>\n

Would you\/Do you follow Twitter feeds exclusively of media alerts?<\/b><\/font>
@nightafternight<\/a>: <\/i>By
\nthis, do you mean a robotic feed? An anodyne presence like that of the
\nMet or the Phil? Or an official channel run by an operator with genuine
\npersonality, like the LSO, ECO and Carnegie Hall (at its best)? I
\nfollow all of the above, but I respond best to the last category.<\/p>\n

This
\nalso holds true for artists: Yesterday I signed up to follow one of my
\nfavorite performers, Shakira, then unfollowed literally immediately
\nbecause I could see it was nothing but propaganda sound bites from an
\noutside source. And Napalm Death I couldn’t even bring myself to
\nfollow: The band joined Twitter in February, has racked up some 600
\nfollowers, and has tweeted (how I hate using that word) twice. I’d far
\nrather follow someone sporadic but personable, like Danielle de Niese.<\/p>\n

@anastasiat<\/a>: <\/i>Absolutely not. (See below.)<\/p>\n

@sethcolterwalls<\/a><\/i>: Media alerts? No. But general-audience concert or scheduling alerts? Sure. Those can be helpful<\/p>\n

@gsandow<\/a>:  <\/i>I
\ndon’t look at Twitter media alerts. I think they’re lame. No
\npersonality. And no information that’s new to me. Not what I’m on
\nTwitter for. I don’t want to hear that the XYZ Symphony is, yawn,
\nplaying Rachmaninoff. I want to get new ideas. And it happens. <\/p>\n

Do
\nyou envision a world in which publicists and journalists will only
\ninteract on Facebook and Twitter, cutting press releases, follow-up e
\nmails, and phone calls completely out of the mix?<\/b><\/font>    
@nightafternight<\/a>: <\/i>Not
\nreally, not entirely. Phone calls are still extremely useful for nuance
\nand detail, I find — and yes, I’m talking about my dealings with
\npublicists, not the interviews themselves. I don’t foresee a word
\nwithout press releases, though I could envision one in which I relied
\nmore on Twitter posts that linked to succinct web press releases,
\nideally rich with multimedia content.<\/p>\n

If lacking follow-up calls
\njust means that I’ll be getting unsolicited DMs via a channel I still
\nview as a precarious mix of public and private, I’m uneasy with that
\nbut could get used to it. The only DMs I actually resent are pitches
\nthat come from people I don’t really know — but the paradox is that no
\none can send me a Twitter DM unless I follow them in the first place.
\nKnowing who to follow is a matter of experience and trust in itself.<\/p>\n

Should
\nwe come to an all-Facebook scenario, I am in serious trouble. I am not
\nnow a participant in this particular social-media construct for one
\nmain reason: I reject the use of “friend” as a verb expressing
\nagreeable contact. I know I’m picking nits; “follow” is not much
\nbetter. But “friend” implies a relative interpersonal value judgment
\nwith which I’m deeply, deeply uncomfortable when we are all expected to
\nnavigate the increasingly fine line that is objectivity with due care
\nand restraint. Believe it or not, that actually means a very great deal
\nto me, despite the undeniable fact that I count several composers and
\nartists among my personal friends.<\/p>\n

@anastasiat<\/a>: <\/i>Oh
\ngood God, no–maybe it’s just in my head, but I feel like that’s
\ncrossing some kind of (invisible, arbitrary) line in the sand. My
\npolicy, as it is right now, is that I won’t accept pitches via FB,
\nTwitter, or IM. Personally, I really don’t like being confronted all
\nday long, at random & frequent intervals, with barrages of
\ninformation and entreaties to cover something\/someone, especially when
\nI’m writing on deadline, doing an interview, etc. etc. etc. I suppose I
\ncould shut down the feeds\/sites, but often I *am* using them to dig up
\ninfo myself.<\/p>\n

I suppose that’s a matter of personal preference
\n& time management (ha!) skills, however, and perhaps also partly
\nattributable to the fact that I cover multiple genres–the number of
\npublicists’ lists I’m on grows exponentially for that reason. <\/p>\n

@sethcolterwalls<\/a><\/i>:
\nWe’ll still need all those other things, I’m guessing, even if we grow
\nto depend a bit more on social networking tools. However: can I say I
\ndislike it when I approve a Facebook friend request from a stranger
\n(which I generally do, ’cause once you’re there, why not?) and then
\nimmediately find myself bombarded with press releases and invites to
\nrandom shows? That’s not fun.
 
@gsandow<\/a>: <\/i>No. Why would that happen? Seems to me we’re developing more ways to communicate, not shutting down old ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though many, many more music journalists are on Twitter, these are the people I noticed interacting with the publicists I interviewed the most. Oodles of thanks to  @nightafternight: Steve Smith, New York Times, Time Out New York;  @anastasiat: Anastasia Tsioulcas, Gramophone, Variety; @gsandow: Greg Sandow, Wall Street Journal, ArtsJournal; and @sethcolterwalls: Seth Colter Walls, Newsweek […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-interviews","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}