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MCC offers public policy updates on Twitter
by Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published July 31, 2009
Detroit - Most reports about the Twitter phenomenon have stressed its use for social networking, but the Michigan Catholic Conference is showing that Twitter need not be trivial.
"We're looking forward to using this tool as another means of keeping the Catholic community in tune with what is taking place here in Lansing at the state Capitol," Dave Maluchnik, the MCC's director of communications, said in his July 21 announcement that the organization had launched its own Twitter page the previous day.
Follow them
If you want to receive the posts from the Michigan Catholic Conference:
- Visit http://Twitter.com
- Sign up for a Twitter account
- Visit http://twitter.com/MICatholicConf
- Click on the box marked Follow beneath the MCC logo in the upper-left corner
- You will now be able to automatically receive any updates from the MCC. You can either get them on your Twitter page or set it up so they are sent to your phone.
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Twitter is one of the recent social networking utilities allowing people, organizations or businesses or organizations to send out messages with a maximum of 140 characters. The message is then sent to anyone who has signed up to follow a particular sender.
The Lansing-based MCC is the public policy voice of all seven Michigan dioceses. Besides providing links to the text of its own statements on public policy issues, the MCC's use of Twitter will also provide links to news stories "and anything else that may fall under the Catholic/policy umbrella or is deemed relevant to the mission of the conference," Maluchnik's announcement continued.
So, for example, a Twitter post from the MCC might link to the Web site of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops or to a news story about developments in stem-cell research or to a position paper on an economic issue such as the earned income tax credit that the MCC supports.
With the Church's concern over the possible use of tax money for abortions being included in proposed national health care plans, a number of recent posts have been about that issue.
As of last Friday, just 40 people had signed on as followers of the MCC's Twitter posts, but Maluchnik expressed the hope that will increase as the word gets out of its availability.
"A lot of this information might not be on the evening news broadcast or in the newspaper," he said.
The MCC's Twitter page can be accessed through the MCC's Web site, www.micatholicconference.org and clicking on the Twitter link, or by going directly to http://twitter.com/MICatholicConf.
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