ruthbarnett
Sky News' 'Twitter correspondent' is to focus on politics for its Westminster bureau, the news organisation has confirmed.

Ruth Barnett, who began primarily using social media in March 2009, is to take up the role "ahead of what is likely to be a very social media general election", she told Journalism.co.uk.

Barnett - @ruthbarnett on Twitter - who will be speaking about crowdsourced journalism at Journalism.co.uk's news:rewired event on Thursday 14 January said she has "campaigned the news value of social media among colleagues at Sky News and acted as a point of contact for readers and viewers".

Multimedia has been embraced by everyone at Sky News, she said: "A great innovation has been our @SkyNewsBreak Twitter feed - an account handled by the news editor on that shift to ensure we genuinely are breaking news, fastest, everywhere you are.

"With tools such as Twitter, there is sometimes a failure to listen as many organisations seem to just pump out links. I would suggest you have to be bold, try new ideas, experiment. That's what has made this role so much fun."

"Social media is now a key element of all Sky News' newsgathering and output - from editors and presenters to correspondents, reporters, producers and researchers, it is now viewed as an integral part of all journalistic roles at Sky, as of course it is starting to become at a lot of other mainstream news organisations as well," a Sky News spokesperson told Journalism.co.uk.

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