The evening news featured a sound bite (interview) of Hillary Clinton saying, "I don't know a twitter from a tweeter." This was in response to the rallies in Iran over the recent election. Opposition supporters of Presidential challenger Hossein Mousavi are using twitter to transmit news out of the Islamic Republic. Clinton seemed supportive of the twitter technology in transmitting information on the Iranian demonstrations. Hillary might not not have known the power of twitter until now. The social network, and other sites are important tools being used by citizens in Iran.
It seems the government there is censoring, and or jamming the broadcast networks, and most electronic media including cell phones, and the internet. Those with the capability of smuggling messages out of the country are doing so in bite-size tweets. Iranians around the world are joining in, posting their one line news tweets.
I was watching the network news only to see an NBC correspondent locked in a hotel room, (journalists are restricted) and following developments on line. Wow, It's hard to believe how powerful a tool twitter has become. The entire report on network television was quoting tweets, and video from youtube, facebook and showing coverage no news crew could get, REAL PICTURES OF DEMONSTRATORS, AND THE VIOLENCE IN THE STREETS.
An L.A. Times article explained it perfectly when it said, "this (the tweets) is partly, because the Iranian government is jamming some of the stations. Internet technology is also allowing young people to bypass the traditional media. Many of them are resentful that these stations tended to urge Iranians not to vote in elections, which they believe is how Ahmadinejad came to power."
We all will be following events in Iran, and depending on citizen journalists to feed unfiltered news to the world.
