"Everyone's digital these days"

In the Washington Post, Howard Kurtz talks about how Dr Sanjay Gupta used Twitter to confirm he had been approached by the Obama administration about the US Surgeon General's post:

I confirmed yesterday that Obama has offered the job and that Gupta had all but officially accepted. Got it up on the Web site at 2:36 p.m., mere moments after filing the story. Cyberspeed comes in handy sometimes. CNN, where I host a weekly program, didn't report it until 3:59, but the blogs went crazy--lead story on HuffPost, top of Drudge's page, then the NYT and others. Gupta wouldn't comment to me--while not denying the story--but confirmed on his Twitter feed that he "has been approached by the Obama administration about the U.S. surgeon general's post." Everyone's digital these days.

Read more here.  Interesting that Gupta wouldn't speak to a journalist but would comment on Twitter.  Is it a sign of things to come?  Should journalists be worried?

Comments

[Pam Rosengren]

should journalists be worried? According to this article, "End Times", yes they should.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200901/new-york-times

[David Jackmanson]

I don't know if they should be worried, but they are going to be levelled down. Journalists are going to have to make sure they have quality sources of Internet information, use Twitter properly etc. That means they're competing on the same level as the average punter, instead of having privileged access.

Of course some journalists will always have privileged access to important people - that won't go away. But I think it will become less common, and the number of really important people who can afford to restrict access to favoured journalists will go down.