Twitter’s fast but full of opinions
Read a tremendously interesting article in the Economist the other day about the speed at which news is being covered. It explores how wonderful Twitter is at breaking news but then, how inevitably with so many people trying to have their say, descends into useless nonsense.
I experienced firsthand the use of ‘Twitter news’ during the tube strike when the TFL website was providing no useful information about if it had a actually started or not. Instead i turned to second by second reports of hellish bus journeys on Twitter due to the strike having begun.
However with more important news such as the recent protests in Iran while Twitter provides the second by second reports the broadcasters are incapable of it is by no means a substitute. Information is often incorrect and the depth of coverage will never reach the levels broadcasters are capable of no matter how many tiny URL’s are used.
More importantly as on any Twitter story the first few posts are ‘factual’ but this quickly descends into opinionated rants making searching for actual useful reports very difficult.
Long live the BBC (for accurate news coverage even if it is a little bit slower).
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