It all started with a tweet: The very real new cycle of news

The news cycle has changed dramatically since I began college in 2006. Going to school, I looked forward to becoming an educated journalist, and writing stories (at that time, sports stories) and getting them published in a newspaper and seeing people read it all over town. Nowadays, many newsstands sit untouched, and people rather see what's going on online and on their smartphones. (Although, I'm quite happy Manchester still embraces the print product!)

There's no better way to display how the newscycle has changed then by how the events of Friday unfolded. While working in the Manchester District Library (come visit me, by the way, I usually am on the second floor Friday afternoons), I checked my Twitter feed, just see what was happening in the world. There, I saw a tweet from @RoyalOakPatch, the Patch.com website that covers my hometown, Royal Oak. It had said the Royal Oak School District had named its finalists for superintendent. The former superintendent, Thomas Moline, was retiring after serving the district for five years.

Royal Oak Schools names its superintendent candidates: http://patch.com/A-gsLSless than a minute ago via TweetDeckRoyal Oak Patch

Being curious, I clicked on the link. I started going down the list and stopped when I saw the name "Shawn Lewis-Lakin, Manchester Community Schools."

I did a double-take to make sure I saw the name correctly, and I did. I called our new copy editor, Tanya, who began last week, and informed her of the news. She then began working on calling Lewis-Lakin, and shortly after the Patch story for Royal Oak was online, the Enterprise had a full story up before dinnertime. As of April 4, it was the second most-read story on Heritage.com.

The most miraculous piece of all this, even to a 20-something-year-old like me, is that it all stemmed from a simple tweet. One person, in this case an editor, sent out a little message containing less than 140 characters and a link, and it stemmed into a story that could affect the Manchester community and its schools. In this Internet (and increasingly mobile) age, it can just take a simple tweet to spur front page-worthy news. And this is one of the best local examples I have found since starting at the Enterprise in January.