Twitter in Mississippi

Last weekend, tornadoes and severe weather was the big story throughout the day on Saturday. Many news outlets reported a tornado had hit Yazoo City, MS in the middle of the day.

I quickly checked for possible photos of the damage on Twitter, but could not find very much. I did a search for "Yazoo City" and only text reports of tornadoes came up. There were a few links to "streaming" video from some storm chaser Web sites, but those didn't seem to load or play very well.

I think this instance highlights the lack of infiltration Twitter has in some areas. While Twitter can be a good source of news in some areas, in others it may take awhile. I wouldn't think Mississippi has the same Internet connection infrastructure as a state like New York or California and this would explain the disparity in Twitter reporting.

While Twitter can usually be counted on in high-population areas, in others, like Mississippi, there may be a longer lag time. I think encouraging the use of Twitter in areas like Mississippi is an even bigger key for news organizations in these kinds of places. I think the local stations should be putting an emphasis on the ability to submit pictures to them via Twitpic and e-mail.

There is a reason some stories are undercovered and part of that may just be the lack of resources to report the news. With dedicated encouragement from the news managers in those places, the stories of the people in these regions could just be able to be told to more people.