RIP, the Press Release (1906-2010) — and Long Live the Tweet

(Ad Age) — Kanye’s belated arrival on Twitter (with a Twitter Verified Account, launched in July) has had me thinking about how, increasingly, the news media has a nifty new way of “reporting” entertainment news: regurgitating celebrity tweets. It wasn’t that long ago that a celebrity with something “important” to put out there, like an apology, would automatically say it through a tightly controlled protocol, like a set of engineered sound bites delivered via a well-staged interview. Now 140 characters or fewer suffices.

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