8/13/2019 How Twitter's Breaking The News

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8/13/2019 How Twitter's Breaking The News

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www.pcpro.co.ukPC PROSEPTEMBER2013044 www.pcpro.co.uk 045PC PROSEPTEMBER2013

FEATURE Twitter news FEATURETwitter news

press statements and interviews filtered through

press officers or agents are particularlyforthcoming. Footballers have even beenfined and banned for bringing the game into

disrepute after tweeting indiscrete commentsthat have ended up all over the media.

It isnt always newspapers shamingcelebrities via social media; sometimes its theother way round. Actress Evan Rachel Wood

used Twitter to lambast the Daily Mail websiteafter it published pictures of her unborn baby

without her permission. She was photographedby paparazzi as she left an LA hospital holding

her latest ultrasound picture. Thats my child,

Wood tweeted. Its not even out of the womband they are snapping photos of it. I have never

been more violated by a photographer. TheDaily Mail subsequently removed the storyfrom its website, seemingly without apology.

As well as photos of celebrities unbornbabies, newspapers and broadcasters seem to

have little compunction about republishing anyphoto or video they find on a social media sitewithout seeking the owners permission. There

have been numerous cases of photographerscomplaining that their photos were stolen

by newspapers. In 2010, for example,photographer Emily James posted a photoof a protest at a British polling station using

Twitpic, which subsequently appeared withouther prior knowledge on several national

newspaper websites. TheTimesand TheGuardian subsequentlyapologised and paid

James compensationfor the photos,

according to reports.But when she invoicedtheDaily Mail website

for the photos it published without permission,she received an email from the picture editorinforming her we cannot pay the amount you

have requested [1,190 for three photos]because these images were taken from TwitPic

and therefore placed in the public domain.The picture editor reportedly offered her only40 per image, but later agreed to pay more.

Twitter may have stolen the mediasthunder, but the medias certainly getting

something back in return.

If you cant beat emDespite its flaws, Twitter and social media haveclearly had a disruptive effect on newsrooms.

Indeed, the journalistic instinct to relay newsas quickly as possible means most television

and newspaper reporters are now breakingnews on Twitter before their own websites,irrespective of the potential commercial harm

it might do to their titles. After all, tweets earna publisher precisely no revenue.

Twitter has also changed the way newsis reported. Before 2010, court reportinglargely consisted of reporters jotting down

shorthand notes and rushing outside thecourtroom to relay them to the TV cameras

or file reports for their website. In December2010, however, the lord chief justice ruledthat the use of an unobtrusive, handheld,

virtually silent piece of modern equipmentfor the purposes of simultaneous reporting

of proceedings to the outside world as theyunfold in court is unlikely to interfere withthe proper administration of justice.

Reporters nowroutinely tweet from

the press gallery,providing the firstreal-time coverage of

court proceedings in

the history of British justice. Its an enormousresponsibility for the courtroom reporters,who must continue to ensure that their

tweets dont interfere with justice and reportwhats being said accurately within the limits

of 140 characters, as well as performing theirregular reporting jobs. There is a danger whenwriting notes, thinking about scripts and texting

tweets that you will miss the subtleties of legalargument; the way that a line of questioning

is being developed, wrote the BBCs PhilippaThomas after her first attempt at courtroomtweeting during the Stephen Lawrence murder

trial in 2012. There are pitfalls for journalistsin trying to do too much and failing to do

anything properly the common lamentof our multitasking, multimedia age.

With courtreporting, its critical

to deliver exactquotations, notparaphrases,

Thomas added.That doesnt tend

to work on Twitter,which requires you to be succinct. On occasionwe found that, where a headline quote emerged,

we had to follow up, letting the news deskand the website know precisely which words

came from the barrister and which from thetwittering broadcaster.

Court reporters arent the only journalists

embracing Twitter. Sports reporters routinelytweet live updates from matches and quotesfrom pre- and post-match press conferences.

Any major tech announcement is live-tweetedby dozens of websites, including PC Pro.

Breaking news stories often appear on Twitterfirst, thanks largely to the services ease of useand immediacy a reporter need only tap a few

words into their phone and press Send, ratherthan log in to a content management system,

fill out the required fields and wait for an editoror sub-editor to readtheir work.

This desire tobreak news as quickly

as possible on Twitterhas given rise tosome interesting

internal conflicts.The BBC sparked a

mini furore in mediacircles in 2012 whenit issued guidance to

reporters, stating thatour first priority

remains ensuringthat importantinformation reaches

BBC colleagues, andthus all our audiences,

as quickly as possible and certainly not afterit reaches Twitter.The guidance was interpreted perhaps,

not unreasonably as an edict that journalistsshouldnt break stories on Twitter, forcing

the BBC to issue a clarification on itsEditors Blog a day later. To clarify anymisconceptions, this guidance isnt about

telling BBC journalists not to break storieson Twitter, the update read. Its about

making sure stories are broken as quickly andefficiently as possible to our large audienceson a wide range of platforms Twitter, other

social networks, our own website, continuousTV and radio news channels, TV and radio

bulletins and programmes across severalnetworks. Clear as mud, then.

YouTubereportingTwitter isnt the onlysocial media servicebeing used to break

news. YouTube hasbecome another crucial channel for journalists,

even those who have their own television newschannel and camera crews to call on.

During the London riots in 2012, Skys

Mark Stone found himself among looters whowere brazenly ransacking shops in Clapham.

Instead of waiting for a Sky camera crew toarrive in south London and risk the lootersdispersing, or scaring them off with the

prospect of having their faces splashed allover national television, Stone fished hisiPhone out of his pocket and began recording

what he saw. Stones report was e xtraordinaryfor two reasons: the footage of youths

breaking into shops and walking outunchallenged with whatever they could findwas shocking in its own right, but even more

extraordinary was the way Stone walked upto the looters and called them to account for

their actions, more in the style of an angryresident than an impassive observer.

Are you proud of what youre doing?

Stone yells at looters, emerging from a branchof Currys Digital with huge boxes in their

hands. Stealing stuff, whats that about?In fact, when asked if hes a journalist by

another looter, Stone replies, No, I live here,

Im just astounded at what youre doing.And so a piece of citizen journalism

with its shaky video, amateur production valuesand rough-and-ready style of questioning became one of the defining television

broadcasts of the riots, with Stoneacclaimed as one of its heroes.

Agenda settingTraditional news outlets dont only take style

cues from social media, they take stories too.Tabloid and middle-market newspapers havestaff dedicated to monitoring the Twitter feeds

and Facebook profiles of celebrities and otherpublic figures, in case they say anything

newsworthy or post a revealing photo. Sportsstars who would previously have had their

Newspaper picture editors have always triedto strike a delicate balance between powerfulphotographs and those that are too graphicfor a family audience. Twitter, on the otherhand, has no such self-censorship. In theimmediate aftermath of the Boston bombings,several images of victims with limbs missingwere circulated, often without any warningof the graphic photos behind the link.Newspaper picture desks were offered manysimilar images by photographers after theLondon bombings in 2005, but those never

made it into circulation:most were rejected bypicture editors, and a

lack of high-resolution camera phones and socialmedia sites (Twitter wasnt formed until 2006)

meant they didnt appear online, either.Yet almost every newspaper ran withfront-page photos of the Woolwich murdersuspect grasping a bloody cleaver in his hand all screengrabbed from that passer-byssmartphone video. Are newspaper editors andtheir readers being desensitised by graphicphotos on social media?Are newspapers willingto take greater risks with photos, through fear oflosing out to Twitter and its like?I think papersare still quite squeamish about showing violenceand gore, a senior member of a nationalnewspapers photo desk told PC Pro. TheWoolwich killing was an exception, and it willbe interesting to see if it changes attitudes. I thinkthe cleaver image was used widely because it

was out there, and all over social media andTV. It was also the only image for the story there wasnt a softer way of illustrating it.

When covering stories such as Syriaor the Bangladesh clothing factory collapse,

we were very careful not to show picturesthat were too graphic. A few days afterBangladesh we found a set of picturesby [Bangladesh-based photographer]Taslima Akhter that showed bodies in therubble. The pictures were powerful, but aftera long, very intense discussion between thepicture editor and foreign editor, it wasdecided not to run them.

I thought we were insane at the time, buthaving discussed it with friends over the daysafter, I suspect we were right not to publishthem as everyone told me that it would haveput them off reading the piece. The pictureshave been run in print since, but they haveappeared online much more extensively.

Reporters for the mainstream news have had to embrace Twitter

Live tweeting hasbecome a staple formainstream media

A Sky journalists impromptu iPhone videoof the London riots became a defining report

Actress Evan RachelWood used Twitter tocomplain of intrusion

The press dont always seek permission

to use images from social media sites

GRAPHIC PHOTOS:IS SOCIAL MEDIAMOVING BOUNDARIES?