Blurring the lines between "said" and "tweeted"
In 2010, Twitter went from a niche site favored by technology industry insiders to one of the most important marketing, advertising and PR tools of the last decade. The very public, real-time nature of Twitter has changed the ways many media professionals – including journalists – on all sides of the news cycle gather information for public consumption.
Here are two examples I’ve come across in just the last few weeks:
1. Some news outlets have begun using Twitter as a source for quotes on breaking news. A recent Wall Street Journal article on the Federal Trade Commission’s support of a “do not track” system quoted Twitter user Rob Norman’s tweet on the topic:
Advertisers said restricting tracking could limit the ability of websites to offer free content that is paid for by advertising.
“FTC endorses ‘do not track’; an emotional goodbye to free content so kindly funded by advertisers,” tweeted Rob Norman, chief executive of WPP PLC’s GroupM North America, which buys ads on behalf of corporate clients.
This is a good reminder that if your tweets are public, they could show up anywhere – even in the Wall Street Journal.
2. If you tweet at ESPN College Hoops, your tweet could potentially show up on air. The account’s Twitter bio highlights a legal notice that if you send @ESPN_CollHoops a tweet, you give it permission to showcase “in any media, possibly even on television”:
Twitter has an entire policy dedicated to the usage of tweets in broadcast and other offline media. Twitter does, however, draw the line at using screen shots of other people’s profiles or Tweets without their permission.
As Twitter continues to evolve as information-gathering tool, I expect to see more attention around the usage of tweets for promotion and quotes. Have you seen any examples of news outlets using Twitter updates in articles or on-air?
