All of a Twitter
The reason Broadsheet Boutique is so named is because it used to be half about media (the Broadsheet bit) and half about fashion (hence Boutique). Since revamping the blog I’ve diverted away from the media a bit but events this week have called for a little old post about that thing we call Journalism. Enjoy x
Twitter is a little like Marmite. You either love it – and think in 140 characters every now and again – or you hate it and complain about people posting what they have for tea. But for the last week it’s proven its worth for me as a journalist.
All modern journalist know the virtues of Twitter. It’s fast, it reveals breaking news right from the centre of where it is happening and for the showbiz among us it gives a gateway to the celebs like never before.
But it should also come with a massive health warning. Having been burnt by Twitter myself last year – by someone pretending to be someone they weren’t in a story – I’ve learnt the lesson first hand. Now I double check, no, triple check, everything that comes off Twitter because you just never know.
But as much as it can be a questionable source a lot of the time, every now and again it throws up a gem.
The first one this week was this story about a school in my patch. I’m still getting to the bottom of things so I won’t discuss this in too much detail. But it started with a tweet then, after being confirmed by official sources, became a breaking news story before any other news outlet had it. And as with breaking news it got some good hits on the website.
The second Twitter success of the week turned out to have something to do with these fellows – and for posting a photo of them on here, please forgive me….
I've said this band name far too many times today....
Great journalists have shown how they have used Twitter to catch massive breaking news, earthquakes, or Michael Jackson’s death, or London riots. This might not exactly have the same profound roots but it does show how keeping an eye on the social networking site is the modern equivalent of the journalist wandering around their news patch, and it really works.
At around midday the Wokingham search column on my Tweetdeck started coming up with people tweeting various members of the X Factor band One Direction. Normally when someone tweets a celeb asking them to a) come to Wokingham b) confirm if they are in Wokingham c) marry them in Wokingham you generally don’t give it a second glance.
But then as more people started tweeting them you begin to think there might be a bit more to the rumour. Our first thought was that they might be visiting a local school and as people had tweeted the area they were in we called the only school in the patch but all we got was a slightly amused receptionist.
Gradually the search column went even more nuts so I started clicking on some of the people tweeting to see if there was any clue and came up with the name of a charity who it appeared the band were doing some work with.
I rang the charity’s media team, and the band’s PR and eventually got it confirmed that they were in the area. Having that we put this article up on our website, and as with the nature of breaking news, it started to get hits as the entire teen female population of Wokingham went nuts. Call it Beatle Mania or something.
So it might not be the biggest news Wokingham has ever had but you still get that adrenaline rush when the tweets are flooding through and you gradually start to put the pieces together. Then when the jigsaw is complete and you’ve put the pieces together you become the source that can put out the final tweet, quashing false rumours and letting people know the truth. And that, ladies and gents, is what journalism is all about.
Marmite indeed. I am a lover. Twitter is great for filling those moments of otherwise dead time. And can be a great source of news that’s happening *now*, as you have demonstrated.
I had salmon for tea, by the way.
Haha I am glad you are on the love marmite side, me too. As much as I use Twitter for work I also use it for filling those boredom moments, like waiting for the kettle to boil or adverts on Tv.