How does Twitter factor into breaking news coverage for #journalists?

Storified by Eliza Mackintosh · Sat, Mar 31 2012 11:18:06

There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy. · jkrums

Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).

— Sohaib Athar · Sun, May 01 2011 12:58:24

A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S

— Sohaib Athar · Sun, May 01 2011 13:09:10

Since taliban (probably) don't have helicpoters, and since they're saying it was not "ours", so must be a complicated situation #abbottabad

— Sohaib Athar · Sun, May 01 2011 14:02:08

Twitpic - Share photos and videos on Twitter · ReallyVirtual

RT @ISuckBigTime: Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan.: ISI has confirmed it << Uh oh, there goes the neighborhood :-/

— Sohaib Athar · Sun, May 01 2011 20:31:46

Uh oh, now I'm the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.

— Sohaib Athar · Sun, May 01 2011 21:41:46

and here come the mails from the mainstream media... *sigh*

— Sohaib Athar · Sun, May 01 2011 21:42:14

One Twitter User Reports Live From Osama Bin Laden Raid

Without knowing what he was doing, Sohaib Athar, a.k.a. @ReallyVirtual, has more or less just live-tweeted the raid in which terrorist Os...

The History of Social Media from 1978 – 2012 [Infographic] - SocialTimes.com

Did you know that before Google - and even before Alta Vista - there was a web browser called Mosaic? This infographic from MarketingDire...

AP updates social media guidelines a week after warning staffers about expressing opinions | Poynter.

Associated PressThe Associated Press has released an update to its social media guidelines. "Just as social media and its uses continue t...

Do reporters undermine their employers’ scoops by tweeting them first? | Poynter.

New York | Overheard on Twitter An Associated Press memo chiding reporters who tweeted that AP journalists had been arrested at the Occup...

News agencies must evolve or meet extinction

Imagine you're a reporter and you suddenly witness a major news event occurring right before your eyes. Do you snap it to the wire, file ...

Associated Press Staff Scolded for Tweeting Too Quickly About OWS Arrests

A high importance e-mail went out to Associated Press employees early Wednesday morning to remind them of Twitter rules in the wake of st...

Social Media And The Not-So-New Rules Of The Road : NPR

NPR's newly issued and updated ethics guidelines have a lot to say about being a journalist in the era of Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and a...

2 boys: one w/ his jaw blown off; the other his foot. Worse than graphic; an abomination. My hands are shaking. http://bit.ly/z7BL1C #syria

— Andy Carvin · Sun, Feb 05 2012 07:42:02

Just taken part in a radio debate with @acarvin on graphic videos & social media for @onthemedia, will tweet a link when it's on the net

— Neal Mann · Thu, Feb 09 2012 12:15:26

War Is Hell: Andy Carvin and the Tweeting of a Graphic Syrian Video : NPR

How far can a social media journalist go in sending graphic videos of children and violence? NPR's near-legendary Andy Carvin got push-ba...

On The Media - Tweeting Graphic Videos From Syria

The situation in Syria is worsening, with estimates of over 5000 dead and the regime of President Bashar Al Assad showing no signs of bac...

Too graphic for the internet: Shocking footage of children caught up in Syria violence - Telegraph

One video in particular, which showed a young boy whose jaw was blown off in an attack, has been circulating on some social media website...