Using Twitter as a news source is not a new phenomenon. But, it hit close to home when I called my family members tonight that live in Oklahoma. Some of you may know that tornadoes have been tearing through the state this evening. I was noticing a few tweets and some Facebook status updates and it seemed like they were hitting a little close to home. I gave a call to my mom and she said that she was following the news on Twitter.
She’s not the only one. The Oklahoma Red Cross is using it to give alerts on shelters. News stations are getting their warnings out there to more people. Concerned friends and relatives (like me) can keep an eye on things when we are far away and not getting the kind of news coverage we would like from our own local stations.
When I was talking to mom she gave me a few reasons why she prefers Twitter to radio/tv for news updates.
- Pictures. When the weather is bad her satellite goes out and she can’t see pictures of what is going on via the radio.
- Instant news. She doesn’t have to wait for the radio announcer to get the reports from the reporters. She’s getting rid of the “middleman” by following the reporters herself.
- First person news. You can see reports from people on the scene and get a bigger picture view of the action.
No wonder newspapers are struggling. It’s kind of hard to compete with instant coverage.
Where do you get your news?
