Even though Twitter was created in 2006 and has been rapidly gaining popularity since then, I resisted using it until this quarter and only started because it was required for this class. Actually using Twitter has made me realize how useful it is as a breaking news outlet for major news corporations and for news consumers like myself. Also, it’s made citizen journalism more common, especially in breaking news situations.

Twitter’s second by second updates make it essential for journalists today. I think Twitter will continue to be the most important form of social media for journalists until something even faster is created, if possible.

Journalists use Twitter to research, for networking, personal branding, to get story ideas, or to get feedback from their readers. Twitter is also used by journalists to live tweet from events with high public interest, like high profile court cases.

Citizen journalism through Twitter is even more impressive than regular Twitter journalism, because citizen journalism happens when professional journalism can’t. For instance in January’s earthquake in Haiti, Haitians like celebrity Ceral Pedre used Twitter to let the rest of the world know what was going on in Haiti before media or aid had arrived. Pedre used his Twitter feed to communicate with CNN, BBC, and the Associated Press. Citizen journalism becomes important during crisis, when huge media organizations are rarely on the scene, either because the crisis was unforeseen, like the Haiti earthquake or because they’re not allowed.

For example, during the Iranian presidential elections in June 2009, all mainstream media were kicked out of Iran. The world’s only source of information on the protests and riots in Iran came from social media outlets like Twitter, as well as Flickr and YouTube. Social media like Twitter were also our government’s only source of information about the protests, since the U.S. does not have an official relationship with Iran. Citizen journalism through social media has a huge place in breaking news if even our government occasionally relies on it for immediate and accurate information.

Twitter is useful for news organizations in a very different way than for citizen journalists. News organizations usually use Twitter to link to articles on their web pages. Usually, this would be the most pressing breaking news of the day, but sometimes it’s just interesting feature pieces. When local news breaks though, it becomes a competition between news organizations to see who can be the quickest to update their website and tweet. When many news organizations tweet the same breaking news, the wittiness of the tweet becomes more important if the news information wants clicks.
Individual journalists use Twitter differently than news organizations or citizen journalists. I’ve found that often times journalists use their Twitter accounts to link to their most recent stories for whatever news organization they’re affiliated with. However, their personal accounts include a lot more personal branding and are more laid back than accounts that they use that are directly connected with their news organizations. For instance, at seattlepi.com, a journalist and blogger Humberto Martinez may tweet from the Seattlepi official account, or from the piAfterDark twitter account, (for the entertainment blog After Dark), or from his personal account, Humbearto. Each tweet from a different account will have it’s own branding and it’s own level of professionalism. This pattern seems to reflect the behavior of most journalists on Twitter.

I plan on continuing my Twitter use, although I’m not sure yet whether or not tweeting is my thing. Still, after this quarter, I can’t imagine giving up Twitter as a breaking news source.