Sometimes the tweets themselves are newsworthy, or the news articles cite a tweet. Some local governments use Twitter for announcements you can't easily get elsewhere, especially during a disaster like a big snowstorm.
> Some local governments use Twitter for announcements you can't easily get elsewhere, especially during a disaster like a big snowstorm.
A bit like my national government seems to be run via WhatsApp…
In an emergency situation, if twitter was the only rapid source, I'd have to go look there. This is partly why I said elsewhere in this thread that avoiding twitter isn't practical for everyone. The chances of such an emergency where I am is pretty remote. If any of my local politicians are listening: if there is something that important and you can't reliably provide information somewhere instead of (or as well as) twitter, rest assured that even if I voted for you last time I won't the next!
That, and some government run sites are under-resourced to survive the deluge of traffic that an emergency might generate. As much as I dislike twitter, I understand that it is a useful fallback.
