The 2nd Law

Not just a Muse album but also an incredibly cheesy way of introducing the second week of law blogs.

This week it was Confidentiality and Privacy. Two subjects close to journalists' hearts but with one in particular sliding out of relevance rather rapidly, (try saying that three times fast).

We'll save the best 'til last then and start with confidentiality which is really a technical term for secrets. Obviously it's more complicated than that but at its root, something confidential is often something secret. For example, let's pretend a hospital is fiddling its numbers, causing patients to suffer; if a hospital worker were to tell a journalist this it would be quite clearly something which is secret but definitely something which is confidential. It is often in cases like this where confidentiality is of the utmost importance and sources need protecting that we look to the journalism code of conduct. Much has been made in the last few months and even years about the character of journalists, arguably we're worse than lawyers and politicians now in most peoples eyes, but yes, we do have a code of conduct. One of the most sacred and important parts of said code of conduct is the protection of sources. Where do people think stories come from if not sources? And if we go around whistle-blowing on the whistle-blowers then who will trust us? We as journalists need to be prepared to go to court and even jail to protect our sources. Outside of journalism Bill Goodwin is probably not all that well known but to journalists he should be considered a hero. As a young, up and coming reporter on a business trading magazine he broke a story using his sources that quite frankly angered the company he was writing about. They took him to court and he was asked again and again to identify his source; he wouldn't do it. Goodwin was eventually cleared and the story revealed to be completely true if memory serves me but it is for his dogged protection of sources that he deserves to be remembered.

Confidentiality though has become a little niche since 2000. The European Human Rights Act is what caused it and the two most important articles for journalists to remember are Article 8 and Article 10. Article 8 concerns the right to privacy and Article 10 is essentially freedom of speech which is why it is so important to journalists to have a good understanding of what can be protected under it. A journalist also needs a basic understanding of the difference between statute and common law. If statute was the only kind of law then you could probably get a law degree in a couple of months, fortunately (or unfortunately if you're a law student reading this for some reason) common law stops that by being absolutely insanely complicated as it is the law made by judges over the years in past cases. This means that despite statute laying down the main laws, any slight changes made by judges in their handling of cases and their sentencing can have huge legal ramifications down the line. You don't need to do a law degree and understand all the ins and outs of common law, I reckon even lawyers would admit they don't know absolutely all common law, but just have a understanding of the dangers this presents. Similarly you don't need to understand every point of Article 8 and 10 but just to understand the dangers and the defences. The Leveson enquiry may return a verdict that calls for what will amount to fixing the regulation of journalists, but this would not be needed if all journalists could recognise the dangers present in law.

Remember when I got all obsessed about secrets a few paragraphs ago? Well there was a reason, and it's as follows. Sometimes a journalist can come across something like the Official Secrets Act which, whilst designed to protect national security, can be a real thorn in journalists' sides as it completely takes away our trusty public interest defence. Although you could possibly claim a defence under Article 10 or perhaps ask them to show how the information you published actually damaged national security, you'd be walking on thin ice. Not to be confused with common law, there is such a thing as common law secrets which essentially gives us the right to have secrets and to pass those secrets on with the expectation that it won't be passed on to others, (Bill Goodwin again). For something to be a breach of confidence it has to have four things present. You are in breach of confidence if you pass on info which:

1. Has "the necessary quality of confidence" (eg is important and not already known) - "not just tittle tattle." AND
2. was provided in "circumstances imposing an obligation" (eg - when a reasonable person would think  it would be kept secret). AND
3. There was no permission to pass on the information. AND
4. "detriment" is likely to be caused to the person who gave the information.

If any of the above are missing then the information is NOT confidential, in law at least, and it can be revealed without breach. An example would be a doctor telling someone they have an STD, let's say it was a politician who he was talking to, if the doctor tells a journalist this then they cannot publish this information without a breach of confidence, it would be defamation and I haven't got time to do that blog now. All in good time. It is not a very recent case now but the Michael Douglas case where wedding photos were published by a forgettable gossip mag (I genuinely have forgotten, oh the irony) that were taken by an unofficial photographer. The judge in the case called privacy "a fundamental value of personal autonomy." The key thing to remember about this case though is that it is a privacy case because they were taken by an intruder. Had the photos been taken by a guest at the wedding and leaked by them it would have been a breach of confidence. Pictures of the young girl who ran off to France with her teacher are now sailing dangerously close to the wind. When the search was on it was possible for journalists to print pictures of her under public interest and qualified privilege defences but now... be careful.

Journalism is selling words for money but that should never mean you compromise your legal safety. An important case to remember here is the continuing saga of Princess Caroline which has come to define privacy over and over again. In the original case photos of the princess eating in a restaurant were published. I could comment on the cult of celebrity and why anyone would want to see those photos anyway but this is a law blog so shut up. Those photos were a breach of her privacy but why? She's famous, surely she expects it. No. Not how it works. She was sitting inside the restaurant at the back, clearly trying to conserve her privacy, not performing a public duty so she had the expectation of privacy in this case. Publishing photos of her would be - and was - a total breach of privacy. There isn't a public interest defence here. This ruling essentially meant that an activity can be private even it occurs in a public place and the person concerned is famous. It doesn't always work that way for ol' Caroline though as this more recent example shows. Personally I don't want to see pictures of Princess Caroline but anything about her daughter is welcome as far as I'm concerned.

What our mate Carol (can I call you Carol?) should have done is whack an injunction on everything that moves like everyone with the money and the lawyers does these days. When a journalist has a juicy story, the person or group the story concerns has the right to reply, that is the journalist must let them know the story is about to break if they are to be free from defamation claims. Unfortunately this means the person can go "Right..." and grab an injunction hot off the presses from Lord Justice Eady or similar. An injunction against one is an injunction against all, so if I took out an injunction against you for threatening to print the extremely damaging story that I am completely and utterly terrified of wasps then no one else can print that story either as the injunction stops them too. What journalists took to doing in the early days was reporting the fact that there was an injunction so, using the wasp example, "A student journalist has taken out an injunction... etc," and that would be enough but now we also have super injunctions which prevent even the mentioning of the original injunction. This was what happened in the now famous Ryan Giggs saga. Giggs had taken out an injunction preventing journalists from saying he had been a bit naughty but then also took out a super injunction preventing journalists from saying he'd taken out an injunction. Fortunately (or unfortunately if you're Ryan Giggs) it all got published on Twitter, tweeted and re-tweeted, breaking the injunction and making a farce of the whole affair (poor choice of words there). It was a similar issue in the Max Mosley case where the newspapers reported that Mosley had indulged in some weird sex orgies, knowing it was true but thinking they were safe anyway because surely he wouldn't take them to court and drag that considerable dirty laundry through the public washing machine... too many metaphors spoil the broth. Well it turned out that they vastly underestimated Mosley as he did take them to court and is still taking people to court.

Finally I want to finish with the PCC definition of Public Interest as often it is the last refuge for journalists.

It is as follows:

The public interest includes, but is not confined to:

i) Detecting or exposing crime or serious impropriety.

ii) Protecting public health and safety

iii) Preventing the public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or organisation

Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.

Don't Be Fooled

If the riots have bred one thing it's stupidity. Yeah I said it. Every time I log on to social networking sites to see how friends are doing and in the case of Twitter to sort of stalk celebs I am blinded by the stupidity on show. In the last few days of rioting, every day has brought about a fresh rumour that the riots have moved to my home county of Essex and in particular my home town, Basildon. Due to the nature of social networking these messages spread across the entire county and amongst some the fear sets in. Ridiculous rumours spread, "Primark is on fire" or "The town centre is burning." Gangs on the streets and clashes with police? It could be any normal night in Basildon and it is only in the context of the riots that these unrelated incidents appear anything out of the ordinary.

Don't let the rumours catch you out, follow these simple steps to put your mind at ease. (I'll be using Essex as an example but the steps can apply to anyone, anywhere and at anytime).
1) Just because a friend has texted you with some dodgy rumour, don't assume they know any better than you.
2) Use websites like Twitter to follow your local police and news outlets for example http://twitter.com/#!/EssexPoliceUK and http://twitter.com/#!/DailyEssex
3) Keep watching the news. Sounds simple but in all the news reports I've seen the only mention of Essex has been the outstanding work the police have done so far in supporting the Met and in keeping Essex from descending into riots.
4) Use this map from the Guardian, accessible here to confirm the riot sites. If you can't see anything new then the 'riot' you've heard about is nothing more than the usual activity in your area.

Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.

A Country Up in Flames

On Friday a man named Mark Duggan, 29, was shot and killed in an attempted arrest by the police. The next day a peaceful protest at the manner in which this father of four was killed descended into violence and rioting in the Tottenham area the man called home. It was a politically minded riot, one which was born out of frustration at a system which allowed this to happen. Yes it wasn't all like this but there was a point to it. The following evening the rioting continued but it moved to more looting than rioting, forgetting the initial cause of the riots and instead just taking an opportunity to watch their community burn. Yesterday however the riots moved into far more terrifying territory, shops were looted, streets were on fire, cars burned to a cinder. It made the so called 'student riots' look positively tame by comparison and it was heartbreaking to see people in a community taking away the livelihoods of local shopkeepers and publicans.

Yesterday's events have been divisive. If there's one thing we're united on it is that they were wrong and they need to stop. However the reasons behind them have left most people stumped. Some seem to suggest that the riots were initially a politically charged reaction to the shooting of Mark Duggan before they descended into copycat riots which were bred on greed and lawless society. Theresa May described it best by calling it "sheer criminality." Monday's riots however were a different breed. The violence was disgusting, the images I've seen have made me angry and sick. There was a picture circulating on Twitter of a woman jumping out of her window to escape the flames and I among many others were quick to decry it as a fake. The sad truth of it was that it was genuine but it reflects how unexpected these scenes were to the majority of us that we were so quick to dismiss the image. Perhaps a naive view but I'd call it hopeful, back when I like many other still had hope that the riots would stop.

They didn't though, the images on the news and the Internet, especially Twitter, were a horrible sight. There is a video which you can watch if you you have a strong stomach here as a group of rioters appear to help a bleeding boy up before robbing him and leaving him to an unknown fate. The only piece of light in this was a startling video of a Hackney woman, standing up to rioters and delivering an astounding speech in the face of the looting and vandalism (you can watch that here). The media line on the riots has flitted from "blame social networking" to "why didn't Cameron come home quicker?" I think therefore in the interest of fairness that I should argue the other side of both of those arguments, regardless of my own opinions on the riots. Firstly the knee jerk reaction to blame social networking. Yes of course they used social networking to organise themselves, the Arab Spring has used social networking to organise its protests against oppressive regimes so why wouldn't people use social networking to organise which Greggs to burn and which Curry's to steal their new 42' TV from? Some ridiculous corners of the Internet and the media seemed to suggest it was new technology which started the rioting. Yes the Internet can be a breeding ground for such things but it has also become a breeding ground for hope. Today a Twitter account and website have been set, (@Riotcleanup and www.riotcleanup.co.uk respectively) with the aim of cleaning up the mess that the rioting youths have left behind and showing them the community spirit that they feel so disconnected from. They react against the community because they feel it has nothing to offer them and no place for them but it is young people again who have set up the sites and organised themselves to clean up and rebuild the broken society.

Now I'm going to talk about Cameron, a man of whom I am not a fan but of whom the media has vilified for all the wrong reasons in this. As the tension built and the rioters rioted, social commentators on Twitter and even the BBC questioned where Britain's Prime Minister was in all of this. The answer was that he was on holiday but he didn't go on holiday as the riots began, he didn't run away from the issue, he just happened to be on holiday when it started. The first night of rioting was terrible but seemed that it would end quickly and as has been the case, Tottenham has been the scene of less and less violence since that night. The areas in which rioting has taken place now are copycat riots, but not copycat in the sense of mindless looting (although in the case of some bragging about their exploits on Twitter I'm sure that's true) but the anger has come from the alienation of these people in their community, I cannot stress that enough. Anyway back to Cameron. The idea that he could not make decisions from Italy is ridiculous and shows a real ignorance of the workings of government. If the riots had not escalated further the Prime Minister would have made his decisions via telephone or e-mail but apparently we needed to see his face, his slimy, pudgy and not exactly inspiring face. For what purpose? Today his statements have essentially been him condemning the riots, as if the talk was that he might support them. The words are not enough and will not bring comfort to shopkeepers whose livelihood has been taken from them. What Cameron needs is action, he needs to question the workings of the police force not cut their budget. He needs to stand with the country, encouraging those in the community to be present, visible and not just spectators. His good friend Boris needs to be here more than Cameron if anything, as Mayor of London it is his time and his responsibility to be a strong figurehead, not necessarily something you'd expect of him, but forget politics, we need leading. Sadly it seems at the moment that the government is not up to that job.

We need to keep the riot clean up going long after the physical damage to our cities has been repaired. The government is out of ideas so now we're up. This started because people felt a lack of community, let us end it by building a new one. Sites like Twitter and Facebook may have been the breeding ground for braking windows but it can be used to do more than fix those windows, it will be needed to build community from the ground up. Like the Norwegians though after their recent tragedy, we need more democracy, not less.

Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.

EDIT: Breaking news just as I wrote this article the Police confirm the first fatality in all this as a Croydon man, shot in his car, dies in hospital. It began with a death maybe it'll end with one but terrible that this had to happen for the events to sink in for some people.

Much better articles than I could ever write
Camila Batmanghelidjh - The Independent here
Mary Riddell - The Daily Telegraph here
and awlways worth a read, no matter your opinion of him. Littlejohn.

Goodbye, cruel World

Apologies to the Daily Telegraph for nicking their headline but it's a good one. So yes, as you may have heard, the News of the World phone hacking scandal rolls on taking it's biggest casualty yet as the paper is shut down. It was founded in 1843, bought by Rupert Murdoch and his News Ltd company in 1969 and is scheduled to close this Sunday the 10th of July in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.

Is the closure of the News of the World honestly addressing the problem? Already shouts have gone up from some media commentators at the cynical way in which the paper has been closed as a scapegoat for other, much more troubling issues. The first of which is Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade) still holds her job as head of News International when the majority of the hacking took place leading some to joke that Murdoch has gotten rid of the wrong red top (make the connections yourself, you're not stupid). I suppose you could be wondering what is so terrible about the hacking, after all, it was only celebrities hacked right? Sienna Miller won compensation, Andy Gray was hacked as was Hugh Grant (more on him later) and OK the odd politician like John Prescott but what's the big deal. Well I'll tell you. It wasn't just celebrities, in the last week alone we have discovered that the Private Investigators seemingly hired by the NotW hacked the then missing Milly Dowler's phone, the parents of one of the victims of the Soham murders, the families of those killed in the 7/7 bombings and families of soldiers killed on duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now this may seem bad enough or it may seem absolutely acceptable depending on your point of view but where they unequivocally crossed the line to me is when they deleted messages on Milly Dowler's phone to make room for more from worried family members, leading her family to believe she was still accessing her phone and therefore still alive which by this time she had sadly met her end.

The actions have been described variously as disgusting, unacceptable and all sorts of other big words which fail to actually bring about any real outcome. It seems that an enquiry will come but how soon and how independent, especially important given that there is a suggestion of corruption in the Metropolitan Police Force. The Police are currently holding their own enquiry and according to Chris Grayling, a judicial enquiry cannot run alongside it. Not knowing the law on this I cannot comment with much authority but I cannot understand why the two can not run concurrently. the suggestion by other panellists was that because the government is 'in bed with Murdoch' as the slightly sordid sounding phrase goes, they want to leave the enquiry as long as possible in the hope that we the public will somehow forget about it. And they are right. We need to act now to get to the bottom of this, this could be one of the most important times for the media, the government and even the public at large. The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) have been criticised, seen as an ineffective way of controlling the press but as their Chairman has pointed out in various interviews and press conferences, you can't regulate a company which consistently lies to you.

In yesterday's Question Time, Hugh Grant, a victim of the hacking himself, went down very well amongst the general public with his views on the NotW, Murdoch and has become a crusader against the hacking which, if nothing else has ensured his movie career will continue for years to come. One thing however was brought to my attention after the programme that, as a training journalist bothered me. Grant at one point spoke of a change in the way in which the press are regulated, something which many would agree with but the draconian measures he seemed to suggest the like of which haven't been seen since the 1800s and although he resorted in the end to cheap digs about Grant's tabloid past, Jon Gaunt was right in saying that too much regulation on the press will mean we no longer have a free press. A free press being essential in a true democracy to hold to account politicians, businessmen and the like.

Something that worried me in all the accusations and revelations was the reaction of the other newspapers to the stories. On the day after the biggest revelations that Milly Dowler's phone was hacked and messages were deleted, the reaction was less than some expected. The Daily Mail for example had a small front page article, a page inside and a small piece in the comment section of the paper. You can be sure it was the same across the board. Take what you want from this but it suggests that the hacking practice was not limited to the News of the World. To think however as some do that this makes all journalists scum is to be more foolish and naive than you could imagine. With the closure of the News of the World we lose the biggest selling newspaper in this country and around 200 staff will lose their jobs as the paper closes. Not all of these people would have been involved in the hacking, most will be PR people and journalists who were just going about their own business doing quality journalism on what used to be a quality newspaper.

As a final thought what will happen with Rupert Murdoch's take over of BSkyB. The decision will obviously be postponed but surely recent events will stop the sale which appeared to be taking place despite laws which should prevent any one person owning such a high percentage of the media. Will Rebekah Brooks ever leave? Andy Coulson has today been arrested and how long can Murdoch protect Brooks with the comprehensive investigations and inquiries ahead of us. Her ability to stay on has lead to many speculating on what it she has (from a nuclear bomb to bikini pictures of Murdoch. Obviously a twitter source). What will it mean for journalists in the future? The phone hacking scandal has surely changed the face of journalism forever leaving common practices of journos in doubt. As always stick with this blog for any developments, as I'm writing this blog the story is no doubt already changing and I'll have missed some new revelation. Such is the nature of news in the new media age.

Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.
(and check your phone hasn't been hacked, the police are contacting over 4000 people so it might have been).

Some good links for you on the subject:
Daily Mail Cameron's response
Guardian NotW Closure
Fellow Student blogs. Ewan Kennerell and Daniel Mackrell

Max Mosley is back!! - Privacy Laws

Remember Max Mosley? Of course you do! He was the motor sports boss who the News of the World reported had a sado masochistic orgy with five women. The bit people really get interested in is that the orgy had supposedly Nazi overtones; interesting if you know your history. Although he was paid damages (£60,000 to be exact) he argued that since the details of his private life were now public knowledge this was not enough to restore his reputation. This is quite interesting when you consider libel as to be a libelous statement one of the criteria is that it lowers the persons reputation in the minds of right thinking people (click here for a separate post on libel). The former president of the International Automobile Federation took his case to the Human Rights Court, challenging UK laws which allow publication without giving targets advanced warning. He claimed that since he was not warned about the papers intention to run the story, so he could not apply for an injunction to prevent the story from being published (Injunctions, here, here and here).

He told the BBC '"This is just about whether the newspapers should have the right to publicise very private aspects of people's lives which there's no public interest in at all - it's just purely for titillation and to sell newspapers."' However the court in Strasbourg begged to differ ruling that "the media was not required to give prior notice" because they are already self regulated and access to civil courts for damages and interim injunctions. Ruling otherwise would also have called into question the defence of public interest as having the press warn the people in question every time a story is about to be published would mean exceptions would have to be made for public interest.

The article is an interesting read and available here on the BBC news website. It will also be interesting to see whether Mosley appeals again and what implication this has on the current injunction news, i.e. supposedly revealing them on Twitter.

Apology and Charlie Brooker on Tabloid Journalism

Firstly, apologies for not having posted enough over my short break, but it was a short break and I used it to its fullest, successfully doing nothing really. I'll be blogging more soon, especially once I'm back at university, bringing news and comment and... stuff. For now though, enjoy this mini blog and the musings of Charlie Brooker.

In today's Guardian, Charlie Brooker wrote a column about the News of the World 'phone hacking scandal' and tabloid journalism in general. Suprisingly the response was less than warm from journos but Brooker responded to scientist and fellow Guardian columnist, Ben Goldacre on Twitter saying, "@bengoldacre Am honestly rather surprised. When I write barbed stuff about tv folk, tv folk tend to, like, laugh."

So was it just a harmless and mainly comedy rooted column or was it something that we journalists should be up in arms about.

Leaving my opinions out of it, here's the column in question for you to decide: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/18/phone-tapping-victims-tabloid-hacks

Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.

Journalism and The Internet

Underestimating the Internet is a fools game. Since its invention it has grown from a military tool to a social networking phenomenon where anything goes and has in recent times become an important force in Journalism. From where I'm standing (well sitting at the moment) I believe Twitter to be the most important tool in my Journalistic toolbox. It alerts me to the breaking news, updates me with the latest developments and connects me with like minded people. You only need to look back through my blog posts to see the amount of times I've been able to take a story from Twitter and turn it into a blog.

Recently though I was struck by how important Twitter became in the events surrounding Hosni Mubarak's eventual resignation in Egypt. In the early days of the the revolution, Internet traffic was interrupted and there were reports of disruption to Twitter, but of course there were already some journalists out there, able to report using their phones, connecting them to the Internet and therefore the world. The Twitter hash tag #Jan25 became the place to look for news concerning Egypt and soon reports were flooding in, all with eyewitness accounts built up from Tweets. Even today I saw a call from one journalist for eyewitnesses on Twitter of the problems (possibly an understatement) in Libya.

The Internet. Just another tool in journalism as we strive to find the truth.


This blog was inspired by a piece in The Observer with the link below:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/20/what-effect-internet-on-journalism

P.S. I know it says Guardian but if you weren't already aware that The Observer is essentially The Guardian on Sunday then you need to do a bit more research.

WikiLeaks Rolls On

Today on the Guardian website one story that caught my eye was that of a former WikiLeaks volunteer, Birgitta Jonsdottir, who was fighting legal action to stop the US government gaining access to, rather obscurely, all her private messages on Twitter.

Birgitta Jonsdottir, an MP for the Movement in Iceland, said last night on Twitter that the "USA government wants to know about all my tweets and more since november 1st 2009. Do they realize I am a member of parliament in Iceland?"

Although most of Twitter's messages are public, some can be sent privately and with her involvement in WikiLeaks it is these they are interested in.

The Guardian writes: "She said she was starting a legal fight to stop the US getting hold of her messages, after being told by Twitter that a subpoena had been issued. She wrote: 'department of justice are requesting twitter to provide the info – I got 10 days to stop it via legal process before twitter hands it over.'"

Full story here ---> http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/08/us-twitter-hand-icelandic-wikileaks-messages?CMP=twt_fd

WikiLeaks/Leeks Continues

Today in the papers the main story on WikiLeaks followed the arrest warrant given to the head of the WikiLeaks company, Julian Assange.

For anyone who doesn't yet understand why he has been issued with a warrant, Twitter pointed me to a good piece by the Daily Mail which explains the charges he could face and also does an overview of the WikiLeaks story so far.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336291/Wikileaks-Julian-Assanges-2-night-stands-spark-worldwide-hunt.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

WikiLeaks

All credit to the Guardian for this but here is the WikiLeaks data analysed and the cables available for download,

Big news story, probably front page.

Credit to Twitter for alerting me to this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/nov/29/wikileaks-cables-data

Libel - Current Example 2

Whilst sifting through the disjointed ramblings on Twitter I found an absolute gem of a story, reported in today's Guardian, about the PCC (Press Complaints Commission) having to pay out for a libel case after comments made by its chairman Lady Buscombe in relation to the News Of the World's phone hacking allegations.

The case "is believed to be the first successful libel action brought against the press watchdog, whose code of conduct opens with a requirement for the press to 'take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information'".

Just another example of how invaluable Twitter is as a source for news.

To read the full story click on the link below:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/nov/26/pcc-buscombe-apology-phone-hacking

Libel - Current example

I was alerted to a current news story on libel through the social networking site Twitter where a user called @bengoldacre said "another reminder for journalists internationally of the need to write about NMT's behaviour (and English libel reform) http://bbc.in/99SfQe.

The story can be viewed via the link above and is an interesting case of where someone is using libel laws to 'suppress legitimate scientific discussion'.

It is also interesting to consider the role of Twitter in all of this. The story would not have come to my attention had it not been Re-Tweeted, (a term used on the site to mean that you have Re-Tweeted someone else's tweet to your own followers, complicated to understand if you are not Twitter literate). Twitter has become a source of news for many people and it is understood that more people go on the web for news these days than pick up a newspaper.
See this brief article for an example: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4559162.ece