I love a breaking news story. The adrenaline flows. You never know what’s going to happen next. It’s the biggest challenge a talk radio presenter can face – especially when it concerns a subject you have less than a passing acquaintance with. One thing is for sure, as a radio presenter, breaking news gives you a tremendous opportunity to make a complete berk of yourself.
When I am in the studio I have my laptop open in front of me. I have Tweetdeck open, both to be able to see people tweeting into the programme, but also to follow news events. For example, today I saw that former Labour General Secretary Jim Mortimer had died, so I mentioned it briefly on air. In real breaking news situations Twitter can, as a presenter, be your best friend, During the London riots and the Egyptian revolution I was able to report things to my listeners far more quickly than if I had relied on the normal news sources – Reuters, AP, PA etc. But as well as being your best friend, Twitter can be your worst enemy. Take tonight as an example.
I can’t remember the time (around 615, I think) but I noticed a tweet from the AP feed which read….
BREAKING: Two explosions in the White House. Barack Obama said to be injured.
Wow. Big story. If it were true. I looked at my Sky News screen. Nothing. I couldn’t see any other tweet referring to it. I have a rule of thumb that I won’t announce anything on air unless I have double sourced it on Twitter. But boy was I tempted. But a sixth sense kicked in and told me to bide my time. I clicked onto the AP feed and it looked fine. But there was something which set alarm bells ringing. Thank goodness, because a couple of minutes later I saw a tweet which explained the AP feed had been hacked. As I wrote this, it’s been suspended.
So I wasn’t taken in, but the American stock market was. It plummeted in the minute after that tweet was sent. So Wall Street turns out to be more gullible than me. This time.
