USA Today’s technology writer, Del Jones, wrote the first newspaper story that used Twitter as its only outlet for sources. No email, no phone and certainly no snail mail was used to collect information.
Jones tweeted a message asking for reactions to a “capitalism vs socialism” idea. The resulting story was based on tweets from 19 CEOs of big companies as well as tweets from the great unwashed masses.
Missing from the Twitter-sourced story? Reactions from any of the Twitter top executives, even though retweets tried repeatedly to get them. Apparently they were too busy with Elisabeth Hasselbeck and “The View.” (see tweet below)
What's Driving This Trend
- Social Media Journalism
- Expanding the use of social media platforms as a primary source for journalistic content.
- Real-time Reporting
- Utilizing Twitter and other platforms to collect immediate reactions and opinions for news articles.
- Crowdsourced News
- Incorporating contributions from the general public through social media into news reporting.
Who This Affects Most
- Print Publishing
- Exploring how traditional print media can adapt and leverage social media platforms for news gathering and distribution.
- Journalism
- Finding innovative ways to integrate social media as a reliable source for news content creation.
- Social Media Platforms
- Developing features and tools to facilitate efficient and accurate news sourcing and reporting.
