TWITTER AS A REPORTING TOOL

                                                                

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When Mendy Weiner reported the Kebles case in court using twitter, so many journalists thought it was unprofessional to do so. But with time and the dominance social media has on media in general, journalists followed pursuit.

A huge story broke on the 16^th of August in Marikana. Basically what happened is, miners were striking and it got out of hand and the SAPS started shooting and lot of people died. So journalists who were there had to fight for a spot to get that information out there first. And twitter was the better, easy and fast way of informing people.

Many media houses if not all of them, have twitter accounts which they use to inform people using just 140 characters. So we take a look at three reporters who did just that.  The EWN Reporter reported from when the miners were gathering. They took us through the whole incident in just few words. They even went on to twitting about what major media houses like BBC, were saying about it. They told a story and they managed to tell it in few words.

Another journalist Charl du Plessis also made use of twitter to report on the Marikana massacre. He was there days before the incident occurred, so he has been twitting and #tagging Lonmin and Marikana. He did that to indicate that his tweets were about Marikana and Lonmin. Plessis took his followers to a journey and made them feel like they were there too. He even went to the extent of re-twitting what other journalists were twitting.

Adriaan Basson is our third journalist who used twitter to report. He pretty much did the same to inform his followers.  He tried to cram all the information so he can get the information out there using only 140 characters.

Twitter has become a fast tool of reporting, taking the number one spot of broadcast. And one can never question that the number of people who are using twitter is increasing which means journalists are now able to reach masses before even getting to the editor. This also helps journalists to have a say in what they give to the public.

Citizen Journalism

The effect citizen journalism has on qualified journalists

Citizen journalism in essence is the covering or reporting of breaking news and news in general by the public. You practically don’t have to have a journalism qualification to do that.

This kind of journalism has been happening before but dominated the industry when social media emerged. We witnessed in the early 2000s when the towers building was bombed September 11 in America.  People, who were there when this tragic incident took place, took to the internet to inform others even journalists, who were far from the scene. Since then, it has been a norm with the use of twitter; normal citizens can now inform the public about events that are happening.

This however will affect me as a professional journalist or reporter. Firstly, what separates me from the citizen journalist is that I have a constructive, objective way or format of informing masses or news consumers. On the other hand, the latter writes to tell a story regardless of how subjective and unprofessional it is.  They just want their voices to be heard.

So ,what happens when I report and a citizen journalist report is confusion and contradictory because readers will fail to understand why the latter hasn’t used or considered ethics.  Citizen journalists are likely to go to the extent of publishing sensitive information because they don’t have understanding of what should and shouldn’t be published. Since readers are attracted to raw information they might find the qualified journalist as someone who holds information back .

We as journalists again have not only our colleagues to compete with but unqualified journalists too. Journalist are no longer the people who get information first hand. This affects the immediacy because when the eye witness sends a story to a journalist , they are likely to have published it on social network first. This discredits the journalists.

There is nothing wrong with public informing people but it shouldn’t be to discredits journalists.

OLD PICTURES

The blogger that was and still is ...ME

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Assoc Mags reception

SVC

Up Close

My First Day At Oprah Mag in Sandton

Outside EWN studios

My Love For Mandela Sq in Sandton

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For The Fun Of Fake Eye lashes

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Thats' me on Mandela Day.

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