Twitter as a reporting tool

@ROBERT_MABUSELA

Twitter was a platform that provided up to the second information about the Marikana massacre through following the right journalist and hash tags. Journalist have seen the benefits of using twitter while they are covering stories which we have seen in the recent Marikana shootings where information was spread quickly through twitter.

Talk radio 702 Journalist Gia Nicoliades, covered the massacre on the day, her first tweet was “#Lonmin very quite here this morning. Police are expected to brief the media on the way forward.” This was early in the morning before the events unfolded. She tweeted throughout the day and also tweeted pictures, her tweets were very descriptive touching on the miners, police and the media present at Marikana. Her tweets also guided her followers on which international news sources where the shootings made headlines, including @BBC and @Skynews  Nicoliades used twitter and all its different functions to keep people updated on the story. Nicolides currently still following developments around the story. Nicoliades twitter timeline for the day had 29 tweets on the day which included 7 photographs.

E News Channel Africa “Enca” reporter Hajra Omarjee`s tweets were interesting as she interacted with one of her followers with the tweet handle @TabedjiM who witnessed the shootings live and requested Omarjee`s email address. This is one of the benefits of twitter, where followers can use media personalities to spread news. This bridges the gap of information because people who use twitter are publishers and may bring fresh material to the main stream media through social media. Omargee also asked questions in some of her tweets which sparked conversations about the topic at hand.

Karin Labuscagne from Jacaranda news also used twitter as twitter tool on the day of the Marikhana incident, she also tweeted using the hash tag lonmin (#Lonmin). Labuscagne only started tweeting about the incident later on in the evening, which is when she started following the story just before the police were about to give a media briefing based on the shootings that happened during the day. Her tweets and tweet pics were mostly describing the latest events at the mine,  Labuscagne is still following the story closely.  Labuscagne had a total of 19 tweets which included 6 pictures.

Most Journalists used twitter as a Journalism tool to bring their followers together with those that follow the different media companies they work for with up to the minuet tweets, about the Marikana Massacre. This helped to provide information as it happend instead of having to wait for the reports that will only be published or broadcasted after they have been edited. It was also important to note the importance for the Journalists to provide accurate information that won`t bring them and their employer to distribute.

The Marikana massacre is an example on how Journalist use twitter as a Journalism to and how other users get information through social media by following the correct people who will bring you relevant information.