It's just a small thing; but for the first time this morning, I noticed a Twitter message prompting a 'BREAKING NEWS' 'strap' on Sky News TV. Specifically, culture secretary Ben Bradshaw's tweet about the Andy Coulson phone tapping thing (sent, I notice, from 'mobile web').
Now I don't know if Sky were tipped off via conventional channels that the Minister was going to tweet something significant; or if it was picked up by the Press Association first... that's usually where Sky's breaking news straps come from. Sky's Millbank studio should probably be keeping an eye out for precisely this sort of thing, but I don't know if they are yet. It doesn't really matter how it got there, though: there it was, word for word, on my TV screen, and being read out by the presenter. That's the kind of media coverage press releases just don't get.
Press officers in government, you'd better get into the social web thing before your minister does.
I don't this is anything new. Wherever a minister is they will quote them. Sky wasn't joining the conversation, they were simply turning it into user generated content.
No change here.