Twitter as a reporting tool.

Comparison of the three different timelines

Twitter plays a very good role in updating the society .Journalists have taken the social network as a tool to spread the news.The first timeline I have used was the timeline of Barry Bateman who is the Eye witness news reporter. Barry Bateman really did a good job with the updates which were straight to the point and relevant to the Marikana massacare story.Every details of the story he tweeted them, he even went far as retweeting other journalists. Information was spread on the social network, debates started on his timeline and before the story went to be broadcast we have already seen it on twitter.The second timeline I have used was the timeline of Cathy Mohlahlana who is the reporter for etv news. She tweeted about the shooting but there were no details of what was really going on but most of the tweets were sub tweeted and you could tell that she was not at the scene. The story broke out on social networks and it was a big story so every journalist had to use that opportunity to report the news. Cathy even went far as updating it on her facebook page this showed the power of social networks in the Journalism industry.The third timeline is Hajra Omarjee timeline who is a senior political reporter at ETV news. Her timeline was full of the Lomnin shooting this showed that it something political and it is close to her heart. She updated about the shooting to the death and the politicians who came to the scene, even the television reporters were there to get the visuals of the strike. Her timeline to me is the one which is the best one and it had all the news and information that people needed to know. Recently she has been updating about the court case in Garankuwa .Twitter as a Journalism tool.Media practioners need to familiarise themselves with the social networks. Twitter is the new way of reporting the news. It easy, fast and cheap to report the news. The twitter social network was also used last year to report what happened in Libya .Most Journalists saw the news on twitter and they then did a follow up on the story. It was then that they tried to stop people from using social networks. Even media houses have now went as far as having twitter handles reporting the news and Journalists from around the world are now on twitter.