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It's always useful -- at any time, for any reason -- to consider how we act on social media. A local publisher does so while appreciating a widely admired newsmaker from Dearborn.
"Thinking about John Dingell and Twitter made me reflect on my own experiences," writes Ashley Catherine Woods at Detour Detroit, a biweekly newsletter nearing its first anniversary.
I'm grateful to Twitter for exposing me to more great journalism. . . . But sometimes I find myself avoiding Twitter — because the constant stream of aggravations and call-outs and takedowns makes me uncomfortable. Probably also because I'll never be as funny as John Dingell. But who is?
Beyond his snarky humor, the 34-year-old journalism entrepreneur salutes his gumption for joining Twitter in January 2010 at age 83.. "How many of us are open-minded enough to publicly leap into the unknown, with as much potential for humiliation?"
Ashley Catherine Woods: "It's amazing how naturally social media came to John Dingell." (Photo: Alan Stamm)
The brave, open-minded former congressman -- who died Feb. 7 at 92 -- proved to be a social whiz, ammassing more than a quarter-million followers with a stream of frank, feisty, colloquial tweets that sounded genuine because they were.
It's amazing how naturally social media came to John Dingell. He didn’t try to please everybody. He never tweeted factual mistakes, or salacious posts designed to make headlines. He generously retweeted the wins and messages of others. He addressed and answered his followers responsibly. . . .
What I think drew John Dingell to Twitter, something I admire and envy, was an obsession with furthering and evolving the conversation — about policy, about American stewardship, or, one of my favorites, abolishing the Senate.
It explains why he showed up to serve his constituents for 59 years when Florida’s golf courses beckoned. How he introduced his father’s universal health care bill at the beginning of every Congress, but was pragmatic enough to work on passing the politically viable fragments.
It explains how he retired from the House in 2015 yet made Twitter his stage as the elder statesman of the party, literally till his dying day. It was an obsession without elitist trappings, because he couldn’t stop talking to, and learning from, all of us.
Woods, who lives in Pleasant Ridge, is a former Detroit editor for The Huffington Post (2012-14) and Free Press consumer experience director (2015-17). She founded Detour in October 2017 and began publishing last March. It has received support from The Information Accelerator, based in San Francisco, the Detroit Journalism Engagement Fund and memberships.
Her post in the latest e-mail newsletter cites these tweets among four examples of pure Dingell:
Thank you for these kind words, Mike. No matter our party affiliation, we are all in the same boat. We cannot turn to our neighbor and say “I’m sorry but your end of the boat is sinking.” https://t.co/8xxS0v0vik
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) December 7, 2018
The Marco Rubio field goal tweet is bad because it’s yet another lame and deceitful attempt to undermine democracy, not because he also doesn’t understand sports.
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) November 15, 2018
Graphic: C-SPAN
