Mark Colvin remembered as Twitter 'titan', an old-school journalist who mastered the new
Updated
Former ABC journalist Jonathan Harley remembers how Mark Colvin always taught him to look for new ways of telling a story. After joining Twitter as the Head of News APAC, he watched as the old-school journalist learnt, and mastered, a completely new storytelling medium.
Mark Colvin wasn't just a giant of broadcast journalism. He was also a titan of Twitter.
To his more than 100,000 devoted followers, he was @Colvinius first and foremost, Mark Colvin second. And @Colvinius was a Twitter pioneer with few peers, the old-school journo was a master of the new.
I first met Mark when I was a very green ABC radio reporter, long before Twitter was launched.
He taught me many things, including the need to keep trying new ways of telling stories. It's a personal legacy that extends to many people whom he never met.
He taught Australians how to discover, share and report stories; to keep striving and keep learning.
Mark used Twitter as an extension of his journalistic being: to feed his insatiable curiosity, to chase a breaking story, to fact-check and challenge, to defend journalistic standards and rail against injustice.
And while spending hours, days, months bedridden or immobile on kidney dialysis, Mark would share the latest gem of a long-read he'd unearthed — an ever-generous curator of great writing and big ideas.
Mark saw Twitter as a treasure-trove of learning, a place to raise people's understanding of this fast-changing, often confusing world.
It's hard to imagine Twitter without Mark. An early adopter, he joined Twitter in 2009 and was quick to see the opportunities in this new platform for journalists and everyone in the news business.
And as the "journo's journo", Mark loved to be first to break, follow or share a story on Twitter.
To follow Mark's Twitter feed was the digital equivalent of sitting next to him at a dinner party, a delightful dive into his wide ranging interests and experiences.
He would roam from "Trump's skewed version of American history" to the closing down of Sydney's insalubrious "No Name" restaurant ('had lunch there one time in 1975 with Gough Whitlam at the next table') to a passing reminder of the wonder that is Wassily Kandinsky's art.
Twitter fed Mark's voracious appetite for ideas and information, and his popularity on the platform reflected his intellect, wit and wisdom.
The Oxford University English Literature graduate knew all too well that brevity is the soul of wit and, so, the 140-character limit became another way for Mark to express complex ideas with enviable economy.
The consummate storyteller used Twitter to knit together great traditions of learning and journalism with the world's fastest deliverer of news, ideas and commentary.
As Mark once noted, if Oscar Wilde were alive today, he would be on Twitter.
And like Wilde, Mark had a wonderful, comical view of the world — when Mark laughed, the room would shake — so Twitter's comic banter was his perfect plaything.
So, with a sparkle in his eye and knowing grin, it's only fitting that the master of words has his own final, posthumous word on Twitter.
Yes, my friend. It certainly has.
#RIP @Colvinius
Jonathan Harley (@jharleyaus) is Twitter's Head of News, APAC.
Colvin's 10 most retweeted tweets
Topics: journalism, community-and-society, human-interest, abc, australia
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