For details of the road crash that completely closed down the M8 motorway at six o'clock this morning, the near 10,000 followers of the Daily Record twitter feed could not have asked for a more reliable source of the news: Iain Pope, editor of dailyrecord.co.uk.
On his way to work, Pope was barely six cars back from the crash, which – tragically – claimed the life of one of the drivers involved.
Pope is normally first in, to 'open up the shop', at the newspaper.
He told allmediascotland.com: “I was on my way in to work and was running a bit late.
“I had got past the Harthill services at about 6am, heading west, when I could see just up ahead cars slowing down rapidly and a lorry which had crashed through the central reservation and into a footbridge.
“There was also a car which appeared to have hit a bit of the central reservation, which was lying across the road.
“i was a few cars back and could see that there were people already tending to the accident victims while we waited on the arrival of the emergency services.
“At first, I confess, my thoughts were how the crash would inconvenience me on getting to Glasgow – to freshen up of the site, which forms part of my daily routine – but then I realised pretty quickly that this was the story.
“I have Tweetdeck installed on my iPhone so, as soon as it was safe to do so, we broke the news from the Daily Record account and my own account that there had been a crash on the M8.
“We have just shy of 10,000 followers on Twitter, so my reasoning was that we could give people some kind of real-time account of what was going on and gave updates as regularly as I could.
“I also took a photo of the scene on my iPhone which we used prominently with the story on our own site today and which I was quite happy to give to the BBC and STV as an example of crowd-sourced material.
“In the hours after the accident I have had a few folk contact me to say that the updates helped them change their travel plans, which is why I gave the updates in the first place.
“I have learned since then that one of the drivers involved in the accident has died and the other is seriously injured and my thoughts go to their families.
“When I told my wife she reminded me the reason I was running a tiny bit late was because I could not find my wallet this morning. I can't help but wonder if, but for that lost wallet, it could have been me.”
