Twitter and the Amsterdam plane crash
LONDON – The UK’s Daily Telegraph has an interesting angle on the this week’s plane crash near Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport involving Turkish Airlines flight 1951.
News of the crash broke first on Twitter, the popular microblogging service before being picked up by the mainstream media.
It’s an increasingly familiar story, wrote Claudine Beaumont.
The playing out of major events in the world of blogs and social media is becoming an ever more familiar tale.
Jonathan Nip, who lived near the scene of the accident, was one of the first to tweet about the crash. “Looking at a crashed aeroplane near Schiphol,†he wrote, just moments after the plane came down.
“A lot of emergency services rushing to the scene,†he updated, a few minutes later.
“Still no more info. Can’t find any info on the net.â€
It’s the last part of that tweet that’s interesting, wrote Beaumont, because it underlines the shifting dynamic of breaking news.
Here was an eyewitness to an event who was able to broadcast the latest information far quicker than traditional broadcasters could.
The internet, which Jonathan Nip usually relies on for news and facts, was being outpaced by his own direct experiences, which he in turn was sharing with the world via the medium of Twitter.
And from there, the news snowballed across the Twitterverse, the blogosphere and social networks. Hundreds of tweets carrying the identifying “hash tag†of #Schiphol began rolling in to Twitter.
Beaumont wrote that it was no surprise that big stories break on Twitter before they get a mention on mainstream media websites: Twitter users, after all, are everywhere, whereas journalists, reporters and cameramen, of course, cannot be in a million places at once.
Blogs and social networks are fantastic for getting a flavour of the hot topics that matter, and for eyewitness accounts and nuggets of on-the-spot information.
But the role of the mainstream media remains crucial, because it adds flesh to the skeleton of a story provide by the blogosphere; it adds value, and the benefit of professional distance and objectivity, Beaumont added.
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
Ian Jarrett
Vegas’s Billion-Dollar Secrets – What They Don’t Want Tourists to Know
Visit Florida’s New CEO Bryan Griffin Shares His Vision for State Tourism with Graham
Chicago’s Tourism Renaissance: Graham Interviews Kristin Reynolds of Choose Chicago
Graham Talks with Cassandra McCauley of MMGY NextFactor About the Latest Industry Research
Destination International’s Andreas Weissenborn: Research, Advocacy, and Destination Impact
Graham and Don Welsh Discuss the Success of Destinations International’s Annual Conference
Graham and CEO Andre Kiwitz on Ventura Travel’s UK Move and Recruitment for the Role
Brett Laiken and Graham Discuss Florida’s Tourism Momentum and Global Appeal
Graham and Elliot Ferguson on Positioning DC as a Cultural and Inclusive Global Destination
Graham Talks to Fraser Last About His England-to-Ireland Trek for Mental Health Awareness
Kathy Nelson Tells Graham About the Honour of Hosting the World Cup and Kansas City’s Future
Graham McKenzie on Sir Richie Richardson’s Dual Passion for Golf and His Homeland, Antigua
ADS PRO 
CCS Insight: eSIMs ready to take the travel world by storm
Germany new European Entry/Exit System limited to a single airport on October 12, 2025
Airlines suspend Madagascar services following unrest and army revolt
Qatar Airways offers flexible payment options for European travellers
Air Mauritius reduces frequencies to Europe and Asia for the holiday season