A few of my friends received “breaking news” messages from CNN in the past 24 hours telling them that “Ashton Kutcher is first to reach 1 million followers in Twitter contest with CNN.” Between news of Somali pirates threatening to kill Frenchmen and Americans and President Obama’s plans to cut the deficit, the news alert looked like a tasteless joke. What in the world was CNN thinking? 


I’m certainly grateful to Kutcher for getting the Twitter name out to more people, but the social network hardly needs a PR stunt at this point as its true power goes way beyond “entertainment.” The news network competing with the actor is a battle of apples and oranges. CNN competes with citizen journalists and everyday people that have something of value to say and be heard thanks to Twitter. Do you, Ashton?