Twitter as a news source, in my opinion, will work very efficiently. People in our modern society love social networking. Their social network accounts are connected to their cell phones and lap tops, virtually everywhere we go we can be connected. And every time we open our lap tops we are exposed to what the people of twitter have to say. Twitter will be a reliable source to get the message out there simply because they are so many people tuning into listen.
When I wake up in the morning, I rarely turn on a news channel before I read my facebook. If breaking news happens, its likely that facebook will tell me first. Last week when the tsunami in Japan happened a major news cast was not where I first herd the story. Multiple facebook status', links to the clips of Japan, and links to outside sources reporting on Japan are what I saw first and are what I built my understanding of the story from.
Now, I am not saying shut down the major news broadcasts facebook and twitter will deliver every story, of course they could not. I believe that facebook and twitter are a great place for the story to start but they cannot always be trusted. Twitter is 140 words or less to tell a whole story. Imagine, "Tsunami hits PEI". Those 3 words would change a whole outlook on the story, and would get many believing a complete lie. Twitter and facebook are very powerful simply because they speak to so many people. But since they speak to so many people and so many people have access, that also means stories can be manipulated and distorted. So we always need our major news source to turn to when wanting to get any hard facts on a story.
Since, in 2009, only 3.6% of the messages on twitter were news related and 40% were "pointless babble", it is easy to draw the conclusion that twitter provides more useless status' then useful ones. However with the growth of hyperlinking, tagging and multimedia on websites like twitter stories will be able to be connected to other stories, hopefully reaching the masses. Many times on my facebook and even on my email, news headlines will appear at the top of my inbox, with the ability to click the link to read the full story. These easy connections over the internet will allow a simple tweet to travel and twitter will be more related to news.
The 140 word or less news report is a great place to start, and wether people like it or not, it will be many starting points for many stories since everyones eyes are glued to their social network sites. I know a twitter or facebook status will get my curiosity going, however I will always turn to the media broadcasts for the whole truth, before I believe a tweet.
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