The public’s romance with Twitter is leaving its salad days, as H.I. McDunnough would say.

Twitter use and popularity likely peaked this summer when the world was giddy with the anticipation that the Iranian election protest might actually succeed in real change, but it has not come to pass – yet.

I read a very disturbing commentary on TechCrunch of how one soldier not only propegated incorrect information about what was happening at Ft. Hood last Thursday. This soldier thought she was doing the right thing by letting the entire world be voyeurs into the gruesome scene.  If people know from  whence the misinformation was coming, they will learn to mistrust this kind of instantaneous coverage – not necessarily a bad thing.

So does this mean that Twitter is on the wane? Probably not.  It has captured the attention of many a mover and shaker, and the APIs help it integrate with other popular tools like Facebook.  It is still a good tool for many organizations to communicate with their constituents, especially when events are happening more quickly than other media can handle, or where regular media can’t serve the needs of all potential audiences, such as during a hurricane or other emergency that effects tens of thousands of people across a wide geographic area.  But we all still need respected and trusted commentators and investigators to uncover the real story.

Perhaps this post could also be called “in defense of journalism”?