Is Twitter the latest in the breaking news front?
Sep 15, 2009
[
amy bonebright
]
Twitter me this: Is Twitter an appropriate outlet for breaking news?
ABC’s Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran twittered some of his own breaking news Monday evening, letting the entire world know President Barack Obama called Kanye West a “jackass” for his behavior at the MTV Video Music Awards. Here’s the text of Moran’s tweet:
"Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a "jackass" for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT'S presidential."
In case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past several days and don’t know of West’s actions, the musician rushed the stage and grabbed the mic from Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech and proclaimed Beyonce’s video one of the best of the century. AWKWARD!
And now Moran is feeling awkward because the president’s comment was made off-the-record, or so says the ABC spokesperson to Politico:
"In the process of reporting on remarks by President Obama that were made during a CNBC interview, ABC News employees prematurely tweeted a portion of those remarks that turned out to be from an off-the-record portion of the interview. This was done before our editorial process had been completed. That was wrong. We apologize to the White House and CNBC and are taking steps to ensure that it will not happen again."
All evidence of Moran’s tweet has now disappeared from his Twitter page, but Politico published a screen print in their article.
The race to be first is constantly in the forefront of all journalists, and being first is now even quicker with Twitter. But I betcha Terry Moran will think twice before tweeting any news again!
