Twitter to news

MU’s own Jen Reeves, one of the most innovative minds here when it comes to journalism and social media, likes to compare the journalistic value of Twitter to a police scanner. When news sources use Twitter to follow the feeds of people in their community, they can glean what is going on in communities similar to what we have in newsrooms now, where police scanners are a window into what’s going on in the police and fire arenas.

Today I was part of a beautiful example of how it works.

My wife and I were walking across the MU campus today and I remarked how it smelled like burning wood, sort of like that first winter day when everyone in town fires up the fireplace. Soon we saw random pieces of ash-like material floating to the ground every so often. It was obvious that something was burning somewhere in Columbia. Read more