A year has passed since I broached this subject here in my column. Not much has changed in my skills as a tweeter in the sun.
After spending time in the sun at a Newton baseball tournament and the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Iowa Speedway this past weekend, I thought running these thoughts again was appropriate.
As a teenager in the 1970s, one of the hit songs of my youth was “Seasons in the Sun,” by Terry Jacks. Tragic song lyrics but the refrain and the tune stick in your mind. I heard it the other day and it stuck in my mind when I began thinking of writing about a little problem I have.
Tweeting in the sun.
I apologize to any and all the followers of the @NDNSports1 Twitter account. It’s usually me tweeting.
Tweeting with the sun out or almost anytime it’s daylight out, I don’t know about all of you, but I have a hard time seeing my cell phone screen. Can you?
I’ve changed the settings on my phone for Twitter, thinking it would help. Well, sort of.
Social media is a big part of our world now. I get it. In journalism, we have to be on Twitter and Facebook and all the rest to reach potential readers. I get it, really I do. It doesn’t mean I have to like it.
I blame the daylight for mistakes when I’m typing. Most of it is from that factor, but as a sports journalist for a small daily newspaper, you have to cover an event — meaning, you are taking photos with a camera, taking notes on a notebook, watching the event always, handling a camera, a notebook, a pen and a cell phone all at the same time.
I’m not making excuses. I’m telling you facts. I did better on my older cell phone with raised keys. The touch-pad phone I have now, not so much.
One other problem I have — and it is why I apologize for my tweets and Facebook postings — is I care about spelling things correctly and using grammar.
I’ve been under attack from time to time since working at the Newton Daily News with my constant postings on social media about my spelling, etc. In Facebook postings, you can go back and edit. Tweets you can’t. Frustrating for me are those facts.
I realize social mediacs shorten and use initials to communicate in the short space.
But really? It’s not sports related but how lazy is it to go from babe to bae? Also, who really takes care in using proper words and grammar on social media anyway? How can people criticize about spelling?
I’ve sent out some doozies. I’m not very proficient at this task.
Take a soccer match for example — Newton just scored a goal, so I’m trying to send out as much information, i.e., who scored, time of the goal and what the score is with both teams’ names. I’m not very quick typing it on my phone. I can’t see my screen because it’s an afternoon game. I’m trying to shade it with my hat, turning another direction or with my other hand while holding onto my camera.
And the game is off and running again.
With baseball or softball, I tend to tweet just between innings, and then it’s a challenge to get it done before play resumes.
Don’t get me started on trying to tweet while I’m shooting a car race at the Speedway. I wait until I get back in the media center at my laptop, watching the race on the big screen to do much tweeting then.
Not an easy task for me. I give it the old college try at every event. Just chuckle with me when you read those if there’s mistakes in the tweets, try to decipher what it really is suppose to say and we’re good to go.
I promise I will try to get better and faster.
Contact Jocelyn Sheets
at jsheets@newtondailynews.com