The Perils of 140 Characters: How I Poorly Worded a Tweet with Context

Tonight, I made a series of tweets from Trivia Night at Baltimore House. One of those tweets lacked context, and read without being at the Trivia Night appeared to imply the team of trivia players who worked at CHCH (and were kind enough to let me join them) was skipping out on work.

I was referring to my own desire to “skip out” on my work to attend trivia night when I tweeted: “The @CHCHNews crew tweet from trivia while I cover meeting at City Hall. I often wish to skip out on work.”

The School Board meeting tonight ended early at 8pm and I decided to go to Baltimore House to see this trivia night that I often read tweets about.

At the time, I was talking with the CHCHers (who were all off after a busy news day – but still hooked to developing stories thinking ahead to tomorrow) about reading their tweets during long boring meetings and wishing to skip out from City Hall.

That was the context that I didn’t have in my tweet, which was read as being me stating the very people who had graciously let me join their team (I wasn’t helpful with answers) were skipping out.

I apologize for my poorly worded tweet.

It was open to interpretation, especially in the context of my frustrated tweets just prior from City Hall.

It’s a hard reminder to me of the importance of carefully choosing one’s words when communicating in 140 characters.