Using Twitter

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I’m speaking to Maggie Harwood, a TV journalist based in London. How do you use Twitter, Maggie? When I wake up, the first thing I do is log onto my Twitter account and see what’s going on. If there’s any breaking news, like an accident, a disaster or the death of a celebrity, the first place you’ll learn about it is on Twitter. I follow about a thousand fellow journalists, so there’s usually something interesting there.

It sounds like an amazing way of communicating news. Yes, it is, for sharing news and sharing links. If I see an interesting article about something, I post the link on Twitter and everyone can see it. And you can also ask for news. Post a message like, who knows about this or that, and you’ll get lots of replies.

What else do you like about it? It teaches you to be really concise. You’ve only got 140 characters for each tweet. That’s maybe 25 to 30 words. It won’t let you overrun, so you learn to lose unnecessary words and only include the most important information.

It sounds like it’s a great tool for journalists, but... Yes, it is. Are there any drawbacks to Twitter? Yes, there are. The main issue is verification.

How do you know what someone is tweeting is true? How do you? Well, ultimately, you don’t. But you’ll usually find that if it’s an important news story, like an earthquake or a demonstration, lots of other people are tweeting the same kind of thing. You can also check who it is that’s tweeting by looking at their bio.

What’s their bio? Biographical information about them. Are they journalists themselves? You can also check their past tweets. Are they serious or messing around or, worse, spreading misinformation?

People do that, do they? Spread false information. Yes, it happens. And also you can reply to the tweet and ask for more information. So there are ways of building up a picture of the person and getting a good idea if they’re reliable or not.

Any other disadvantages? Yes, the word limit of 140 characters means it’s difficult to analyse events properly or to give the context. Many events obviously can’t be summed up in 20 or so words. But that isn’t what Twitter is for. So you believe the pros far outweigh the cons?

Yes, I do. Twitter has had an enormous impact on journalism. It’s democratised the news. What do you mean by that? With Twitter you get lots of different voices and perspectives, instead of all the information coming from one or two big news agencies.

And it isn’t edited or censored. So what you’ve got is lots of ordinary people reporting the news as they see it. And it’s free.