Instant isn't always better

Veteran political columnist Cynthia Tucker told Syracuse students she tweets, blogs, writes her column for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution twice a week and she often appears on television. 

But as the news cycle rapidly spins there still has to be time to slow down and think, Tucker said to about 100 people Monday while speaking on “Opinion and Commentary in the Age of Twitter, Blogs, MSNBC and Fox.”

"It's difficult to figure out what I think about something," said Tucker, a Pulitzer Prize winner. "I don't always have an instant opinion. An instant opinion isn't always best."

Multiple media outlets are offering Americans various sets of facts and creating multiple views on national issues, Tucker said. A “shared set of facts is what we used to share. But we don’t know because of the the various outlets where we get our news.”

Media outlets that offer news with an opinionated twist don’t rise to journalistic standards, Tucker said. “I’m not sure the 24-hour cable television news food fights should be called journalism.”