BBC College of Journalism Blog - A vigorous and robust discussion about journalism from every perspective.

What's the quickest way to get a news story to your audience?

The answer used to be that the reporter would ring a key person in the newsroom who would disseminate it to other BBC journalists on the BBC's internal systems and alert all news outlets. Now the answer is Twitter. That creates as many problems as it solves.

For a news organisation the whole point of broadcasting news is to get it to the audience first, ahead of competitors. But if the opposition gets the story at the same time as the audience you leave your colleagues back at base scrabbling to catch up.

If you are producing a news programme or editing a radio or TV bulletin, you need a bit more to work with - like pictures and audio and guests to interview. They appreciate a heads up and getting 140 characters at the same time as everyone else just doesn't cut it.

Twitter has become even more important as a journalistic tool since the Stephen Lawrence case when BBC journalists reported it in a stream of tweets.

The Lord Chief Justice has now given guidance that journalists can, as a rule, report from courts in England and Wales using Twitter.

In this College of Journalism lunchtime seminar, website editor Matthew Eltringham talked to Dominic Casciani, who was in court for the trial.





Philippa Thomas, who used Dominic's, and others', tweets to present the BBC News Channel from outside the Old Bailey, talks about how they did it and what problems they faced.

Can you take a full long-hand note of the court proceedings while sending out perfectly written copy on the BBC's Quickfire system and a stream of tweets, all at the same time?



Also on the panel to discuss the organisational and editorial issues raised were the editor of BBC Radio 4's Six O'Clock News, Dominic Ball, and BBC news change manager Huw Owen.