Paris - (AFP) - In less than 15 years, the Twitter platform has brought about a radical change in the work of journalists . On the one hand, it provides them with many sources and information, but on the other hand, it may provide a distorted view of reality and poses a risk of being closed in a bubble.

Since billionaire Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, uncertainty surrounds the future of the social network, which is commonly used by journalists and has 237 million daily users.

"A lot of people will find it hard to give up the platform because it's such an important part of their job," Nick Neumann of the Reuters Institute for Journalism told AFP.

The British media expert was working for the BBC when Twitter was launched in 2008-2009. "Once the first stages of its launch were completed, journalists started using it a lot," he says.

In an interview with Agence France-Presse on the sidelines of the "Media en Seine" festival in Paris, Antoine Payet, director in charge of editing at the French National Institute of Audiovisual Materials, confirms that the use of Twitter involves a "great contradiction".

Among the changes brought about by Twitter in the work of journalists is to facilitate their communication with the parties that provide them with information, whether experts or politicians.

"Twitter has created a new version of the Rolodex," Newman says with a smile, a revolving holder for address cards and phone numbers that journalists used to keep on their desks.

In addition, the media is no longer the first party to announce an event to the public, as it was often preceded by Twitter users reporting the occurrence of any emergency event (attack, traffic accident...).

Newman believes that "this has caused the development of the role of journalists, which has become more involved in verifying information" that spreads initially on Twitter.

And as institutions, politicians, and celebrities use Twitter more, it was necessary for journalists to monitor their tweets.

On a personal level, Twitter has allowed some journalists to "display themselves separately from the institutions they work for," Stephen Barnard, a media researcher at Butler University, told AFP.

After the success of the platform in its infancy, it began to receive criticism.

And in 2019, New York Times writer Farhad Manjoo saw in an article that “Twitter is destroying American journalism,” noting that the platform promotes controversy and immediate resentment without looking at things from other angles.

Another criticism that Twitter has repeatedly faced is that people who belong to the well-to-do socio-professional group and activists are represented on the platform more than that realistic, which provides a view towards them that is not the same for the majority of people, with the risk of adopting an idea of journalists far from reality.

“Focusing on Twitter distorts the way people, including journalists, see the world,” notes Matthew Ingram, a digital media specialist at the Columbia Journalism Review, adding that it “gives the impression that certain actions and opinions are circulating.” more than it actually is."

"This was a problem in the newsroom," Newman notes.

"I hope that journalists understand this point," Barnard says.

As for Bayet, he considers that "the issue is not necessarily in the communication tool itself, but in the limits that we set or refrain from that during its use."

Among the criticisms of Twitter, "has provided journalists with a torrent of misinformation and bullying in a way that has never happened before," according to Ingram.

And after mass layoffs of Twitter employees following a decision taken by Elon Musk, who does not hide his disdain for journalists, fears arose that Twitter would stop working.

Although Barnard considers this unlikely, he points out that "journalists, along with Twitter employees themselves, will be among the groups most affected" in the event that Twitter stops working.

And Ingram believes that journalists should "go back to their traditional ways of working in terms of searching for and reporting information, and find other ways to communicate with followers. Perhaps that will be a good thing."