Dark future foretold for journalism and a dark day in the past

Our columnist believes that a face-to-face meeting is preferable to an encounter on Twitter.

A renowned tweeter tweets: “The future of journalism is entire stories being told in the URL of a story.” Hmm.

Despite the fact I don’t really understand what that means, it seems to imply the death of journalism, rather than the future.

Surely journalism cannot be counted as a series of random letters, squiggles and punctuation marks? Or am I missing something?

But when Twitter shares go to a 75 per cent premium on their opening day, valuing the fashionable but fragile medium at more than US$30 billion, you just know the whole world has gone mad.

The whole world of new media, that is – but especially telecommuting, e-conferencing, i-meeting and the rest, and especially in the Arab world, where face-to-face interaction has always been the tradition. And I’m grateful for new research that confirms my intuition on this.

A recent report, Business Meetings in a Modern Worldm reveals that “business in the UAE could be missing out on more than a quarter of additional revenue because they are not investing enough time in face-to-face contact”.

More than half (57 per cent) the UAE survey sampled said they had lost a contract or client because they didn’t have enough personal meetings, while three-quarters said they thought face-to-face meetings were “better for building long-term trust and ensuring strong client relationships than virtual meetings”.

There are other gems in the report, too, such as the fact most business people in the Emirates believe Monday morning is the optimum time for a successful meeting. I’ve always preferred Thursday evening, preferably after 5.30pm.

Interesting stuff, and in no way diminished by the identity of its compilers, Crowne Plaza Hotels, part of the InterContinental group, whose business conferences and other meetings must be a considerable and valuable chunk of their business, especially in the UAE.

In my experience a “face-to-face” at the Crowne Plaza on Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai is preferable to an encounter on Twitter any day of the week.

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I was saddened to learn recently that the United States Embassy in the UAE is doing nothing official to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of John F Kennedy later this month.

The president’s murder in 1963 was one of the most traumatic events America has suffered in the past century, ranking along with the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the September 11 attacks in 2001.

All three events arguably changed the course of world history, so some kind of official recognition from the US authorities here would have seemed appropriate.

Like so many Americans, JFK was of Irish Catholic heritage, and although born into wealth thanks to the work of his father Joseph (one of whose roles was as the first head of the US Securities and Exchange Commission), he had to fight against prejudice and bigotry at Harvard and throughout his political career.

As a result, the Kennedy family acquired a reputation for ruthlessness, but retained a sense of humour. His brother Robert (also assassinated a few years later) used to quip: “I am not ruthless. And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him.”

When I was a child, JFK was revered by my Irish-born family, and he has remained a personal hero ever since.

If there are any Americans reading this, or indeed any Irish, who would like to get together on 22 of this month in JFK’s honour, please get in touch. It falls on a Friday, as it did in 1963.