While TV newsrooms love their Twitter, most still don’t tweet in the overnight hours, even when news breaks. Overnight crews in local TV stations don’t have the luxury of larger dayside staffs — or web producers — and when there’s breaking news, it’s a challenge balancing the multiple tasks of assigning crews, calling people in early, getting on the air, etc., let alone sending out tweets and looking for Twitter tips.
But just after midnight this morning, a thunderstorm of slightly epic proportions barreled through Seattle, waking people up, knocking out power and blowing over trees. KIRO TV (@kiro7seattle) and neighborhood blogs like the West Seattle Blog (@westseattleblog) and My Green Lake (@mygreenlake) were among the only news organizations that jumped on Twitter immediately, updating people on power outages and damage reports, retweeting other reports and searching for tips from other overnight tweeters.
At KIRO, it was the morning show staff that tweeted as the storm blew through. “We have a really good overnight crew that takes Twitter very seriously,” explains KIRO web producer and social guru Paul Balcerak (@paulbalcerak). “Twitter’s huge for us. It’s like a police scanner voiced by the general public that also allows us to get info to people who need it.”
As Paul says, Twitter is “a barren world” overnight, but when news breaks, an increasing number of people are using Twitter to find out what’s going on. The challenge for TV newsrooms is incorporating Twitter into their coverage routines, just like making sure the live trucks (with masts) go to the right places.
