Twitter as a reporting tool

                         By : Tebele LK

 

Charl Du Plesis legal reporter of City Press was one of the journalists who were at the Lonmin shooting scene at Marikana in North West. He used the twitter as a tool of reporting the Lonmin shooting with by tweeting updates from Marikana about the police arriving to the shooting and also tweeting about politicians who were there.

City Press legal reporter his mainly focus on Lonmin shooting was not only on the police and miners but also bringing government officials into the matter on how the shooting affect them in any way. So his coverage about the story was mainly focused on governmental officials and how they express their concerned about the shooting.

For this reporter Charl Du Plesis I think his tweets update on the day of Marikana shooting were informative but not appealing to such a sense whereby his followers will reply because most of his updates were focused on government officials and reporting less of the shooting scene in Lonmin Marikana.

Mail & Guardian journalist Nickolaus Bauer his reporting on the Lonmin shooting was very clear and straight to the point compared to the above mentioned journalist. The reason being is because his twitter updates on the day of shooting if you look them clearly on his timelines are flowing on each other containing different information about Marikana Lonmin shooting.

He used twitter as a reporting tool by reporting every scene that is taking place in Marikana because he updated his tweets every time starting with the mine workers approaching the shooting scene and describing their mood about the scene also as the police were gathered there.

He reported about himself arriving back to the scene where mine workers gathered roughly 1km as he stated from the mine area. His tweets update was informative and conversational whereby his followers can retweet and reply to his tweets about Lonmin shooting saga.

I say Nickolaus Bauer journalist of one of the biggest print publication in the country Mail & Guardian, used twitter as a tool to update the public of the state in a blink of an eye whereby he did everything as a professional journalist to feed informants with the information on their finger tips.

Here with the Eye Witness News multimedia journalist was also one of the journalists who were in the Lonmin Marikana shooting scene. Taurai Maduna also used twitter as reporting tool about Lonmin Shooting in Marikana but focusing on expelled youth league president Julius Malema and his gathering with the mine workers after the shooting.

His coverage of the Lonmin shooting was informative but focused on the emotions of the mine workers after the Lonmin strike effects. So his reporting about Lonmin shooting in Marikana was short and bringing the citizens with the information that is already known and not appealing.