AN university student’s knowledge of the social networking site, Twitter, which she learned as part of her course, has earned her a front page byline in The Scotsman, on a story covering the Haiti earthquake.
Christine Lavelle, a multi-media journalism student at Glasgow Caledonian University, was on placement at the paper in its Edinburgh newsroom last week, when the growing crisis was being covered.
Finding local, on-the-ground quotes became paramount, and the paper was anxious to run good, eye-witness accounts, preferably those that other rivals didn’t have.
“The paper wanted a panel of real-time comments from Haiti,” says Christine. “I told the news editor that I had learned how to use Twitter to search for news during my course, and so I set about finding some.”
Her byline appeared in the paper on Thursday.
Continued Christine: “It worked a treat, and I was delighted with my front page byline – on a national paper, at that – the first of many in future, I hope. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at The Scotsman.”
