Interesting discussion by Chris O’Brien on a PBS site, MediaShift Idea Lab, about using Twitter to report news. Eagle Courts reporter Ron Sylvester experimented with news reporting on Twitter during a recent trial, and we were excited about the results – and especially surprised by the number of people who found him to follow his reports, even though we hadn’t publicized the Twitter coverage. (The American Bar Association took note of Ron’s Twitter coverage, too.)
In addition, we send tweets through the day with Wichita Eagle headlines.
O’Brien’s right that there are some drawbacks to Twitter as a breaking news source – but also some significant reasons for newsrooms to plug in to a new way of sending information out and getting information in from people who are seeing news happen.