Twitter Posts Used for Journalists and Twitter TOS

I was talking to a friend of mine today, William Toll of Navisite,  and we were discussing how some journalists can leverage the content of Twitter. In this particular story William was at Massachusetts Innovation Night, minding his own business and Twittering about the event.

The editor at Boston 24 zeroed in on William’s Tweets about the event and then asked him if he would mind if he could use his tweets to write a story about the event.  This is certainly a interesting approach to leveraging someone elses content to write about a news event. Traditionally, an event will be covered by a blogger or reporter who is onsite, with press credentials. One more recent live blogging event that sticks out in my mind is the one by Engadget for Apples , It’s only rock and Roll event.

To see how this journalist used the tweets visit the post on Boston24.Com

What this brought to mind for me was, what about Twitters new term of service?

If you note in the new Terms, one of the criteria that is listed is :

“If you re-post other user’s content without attribution.”

Now this editor was kind enough to contact William before just posting “his content” and give attribution. But, how many people are using others Twitter posts to write articles?

According to Twitter “Accounts engaging in any of these behaviors may be investigated for abuse.  Accounts under investigation may be removed from Search for quality.  Twitter reserves the right to immediately terminate your account without further notice in the event that, in its judgment, you violate these Rules or the Terms of Service.”

Have you used Twitter posts as a source for your content? If so what do you think about attributing the content to the twitter user?