I am lying on the sofa just now, reading a 5,500-word entry in Roger Ebert’s Journal about Bill Nack and Mark Twain and the beauty of ordinary language, masterfully employed.
Roger Ebert publishes one of these wonders every few days in his online Journal — long, challenging essays of the sort that any “new media” expert will tell you Web readers have no time for. Nowadays, all communication must be conducted in Short. Quick. Bursts. Of 140 characters or less, if possible. All thought must be ordered into peppy, numbered lists. Top Ten. Better yet, Top Five or Top Three. Violate this law, and the world will click away before your page finishes loading.
So people are reading Ebert’s stuff, despite its being long and thoughtful — a lot of people are.
Not only that, but Ebert is reading their stuff. He frequently comments back.
Roger Ebert completely gets it. Even though he knows an older, one-way medium like movies all the way back to the earliest silent masterpieces, he is nonetheless fully engaged and flourishing in the newer, interactive channels. I remember having the honor of sitting next to him for an hour or two several years ago in the Steve Dahl Show studio, talking to him during commercial breaks while surfing the Web on my laptop, and listening as he instructed Steve in the esoteric details of Google Blog Search and Internet Movie Database lookups. I was amazed at how thoroughly comfortable he was with the latest technology. I’m pretty sure he referenced Slashdot.
Meanwhile, as I am reading Ebert, who should begin messaging in the corner of my screen but his partner Richard Roeper, via his Twitter account.
Roeper’s message is, “Check out my look at the best and worst of the year in movies, in today’s Sun-Times.” Looking back at his Twitter page, this is seen to be the latest in a series of six messages on this topic, beginning yesterday at 8:45 a.m.:
- 8:45 a.m.: “My look at the year in movies will be in Friday’s paper.”
- 8:45 a.m.: “It includes by list of the top 25 films of 2008–and the worst 10.”
- 9:26 a.m.: “It includes my list of the top 25 movies of 2008—and the worst 10.”
- 9:26 a.m.: “Also, the performances of the year.”
- 5:12 p.m.: “My look at the year in movies is now up at Sun-Times.”
- 1:02 p.m. (today): “Check out my look at the best and worst of the year in movies, in today’s Sun-Times.”

Martin D-28 Modern Deluxe
So Roeper really wants us to read this year-in-review piece, I take it.
However, he has not included a link to it in any of his tweets. I have half a mind to offer this tip to him (maybe even suggest TinyURL.com or Ping.fm), but looking at the profile box on his Twitter page, I see that he is not following me, so I can’t send him a direct message at all.
As a matter of fact, he is not following anyone. Richard Roeper sends these tweets to 1,142 followers, but he follows not a single one of them in return. Where Ebert is vigorously interactive, Roeper is one-way.
Oh, well. Roeper’s Sun-Times page lists two recent movie year-in-review articles: “Roeper’s Top 25 movies of the year,” from Wednesday, and “Chicago claims spotlight in year of great movies,” with today’s date. I haven’t read them yet, but I plan to.
Right now, though, I’m going back to Mark Twain and his 179-word sentence about a thunderstorm.
Update :
Using a previous comment system, Richard Roeper left the following comment on January 9, 2009:
Just FYI, I was on vacation that week and those were just promos about some pieces I had filed before taking off. I don’t think that’s really representative of my usual Twittering.
And I do plan to start “Following” folks in ’09.
I’m also launching richardroeper.com in January of ’09 (with sections for feedback and FAQ), I already interact with folks via my Facebook account, and of course I respond to emails sent to my Sun-Times account. So…I don’t think it’s fair to say I’m “one-way” when it comes to interacting with readers/viewers.
All the best to you in 2009.
Richard Roeper
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