NY1/CFB

Comptroller candidates Michel Faulkner and Scott Stringer debate.

Tweeting isn’t journalism, or at least not very good journalism, but it does have one interesting attribute: It makes reporters covering a live news event almost as accountable for their immediate reactions as the people they’re covering.

The tweeting journalist doesn’t get a week or a day or even an hour to let ideas settle. They don’t even have much time to check spelling or grammar. (See below. I mean, “Failure … is a ‘failure'”? How mortifying. Akin to “Allow myself to introduce … myself.“)

Those were the stakes on Tuesday when incumbent Democrat Scott Stringer and Republican challenger Michel Faulkner–two of the people seeking election on November 7 to the post of city comptroller–met for a debate. City Limits live-tweeted the event, which was a substantive exchange of ideas. Here is what I thought as it happened (see the full video here):