FEMA on Twitter

On Monday at 3:00 pm, Federal Emergency Management Agency head David Paulison will host a press conference on the large subject of "Where FEMA Was, Is Now, and Where FEMA Is Going," in a rather small space: the agency's Twitter page. For those of you who don't use Twitter, it allows users to micro-blog. Entries are limited to 140 characters a pop, meaning questions--and responses--have to be short and sweet.

I think this is an interesting concept. I like Twitter as a way to keep an eye on what some friends and colleagues are thinking at any given moment. But as a reporter, I think it would drive me insane to be limited to 140-character answers. Far and away the best interviews are the ones where I get to talk to a source, and we're both interested, and we're both willing to go off on a lot of tangets, and the source is willing to think out loud. Not so much 140 characters. More like 1,400 words. I think Twitter can be a valuable transparency tool, as when the State Department uses it to open up the stops on a public diplomacy mission. But it may not be an ideal tool for good press conferences. We'll have to see.