To Tweet to rue

So after telling a potential blogger for Pulse Today that really we wanted at least tow a week (for no money), I have decided to live by my own words and try (until my wiki status reads wizard rather than apprentice) to write a bog post twice a week. Here goes.

Sky News yesterday reported an incident outside Southwark tube, near Waterloo, or at a busy London station involving one or two police officers, a man on a bike and anything ranging from a bb gun, a starting pistol to a submachine gun. One (or maybe two) of the police were shot, or cut, or dove behind a wall and cut themselves - or was the incident in the cut.

Not making much sense am I? And neither was Sky, which seems to have based its early versions of the story on various people - myself included - Twittering about it. I (@PeelaaSqueela) contributed the 500 yard exclusion zone around the scene and the police dogs and armed response units.

A clever Sky Twitter (@RuthBarnett) pieced the story for SkyNews.com based soley on tweets - she even got pictures and video from @jonathanwildman, who I quote " learned my lesson about the power of Twitter today" after getting complaints that the video he supplied was credited with his name. Thumbs up as well to UBM's very own @roxaneM and @SimonMillsUBM among the countless others that added to this growing story. But what is the lesson @jonathanwildman learned?

Twitter is great and I really felt part of a news event as it unfolded - it took me back to my first job on the Clevedon Mercury in Somerset. I was right on the front line, bringing breaking news to the public - or was I terribly misinforming them?

If I was a commuter, say, on my way to Waterloo should I expect a marauding gunman? Or the initial reaction of bomb on tube - was 5/8 about to become another 7/7 or 9/11? Enough fractions...

My point is this. It turned out that two police officers stopped a guy on a bike at the cut by Southwark tube. He drew a pistol and fired at the two cops, who dove for cover (one cutting themselves) and then the suspect rode off. Witnesses and the police believe the gun to be a starter pistol or replica. Not a sub-machine gun. Sure there were dogs and armed police, but no-one was shot.

We as journalists - especially on quality B2b titles - have a duty to maintain accuracy. In fact the editor of Pulse (Richard Hoey) used the accuracy of reporting to talk down a very angry source who claimed we exaggerated a story about delays in swine flu vaccination. He even wrote about it in his blog.

Twitter (and the web and rolling TV news), for all their immediacy, can cause confusion and inaccuracy. So next time a gunman is running around the streets of Southwark shooting police officers, I might think twice about Tweeting about it. Or maybe not.