People can talk down to Twitter and Facebook all they want. But, today I had a firsthand experience on just how useful these tools have become in the journalism world. For the first time…maybe not ever, but definitely in Tucson… a federal judge allowed media to tweet from a federal courtroom. It just so happened to be the Jared Loughner sentencing, the man convicted for the Jan. 8, 2011 shooting in Tucson.

Typically a place where no cameras, audio recording, or photographs are allowed, our reporters sore thumbs from texting/tweeting replaced a sore hand from taking too many notes. Following the Twitter feeds like a hawk, I compiled a story with the play-by-play of what was going on inside the courtroom. When the sentence came down, I got the story out as quick as possible. I was even told that our app-push beat all local news outlets, CNN, and national networks. My story even got picked up by Breaking News:

And while I agree that no one cares about the “What I Ate for Breakfast” tweets, it is times like these that I see first hand how social media is changing the game in this industry. Here is my story: http://bit.ly/Uyfu8D