From the Discovery gunman — which first “broke” on Twitter — to the New Zealand earthquake, it’s been quite the week for Twitter on the news front. The Washington Post wrote a timeline story on how the Discovery story played out on Twitter, and Paul Farhri writes this:
“TV can offer live pictures of an event (and local stations were on the scene quickly on Wednesday), and newspapers can provide context and fact-checking, but for raw speed and real-time eyewitness accounts, it’s now virtually impossible for the mainstream media to keep pace with the likes of Twitter.”
That’s quite the statement when you think about it. Adds Twitter’s Robin Sloan, who linked the story on Twitter’s media blog: “What I like about Farhi’s piece is that it emphasizes the synthesis. Tweets don’t replace journalism; they kick-start it and turbo-charge it.”
