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News on twitter: Too much too soon?

ByNatalie Ray

I don’t imagine I’ll be blogging much over the coming weeks. I won’t lie, the last couple of days have been tough.

Yesterday, my husband was late home from work. His motorbike wasn’t there when I got back from taking the girls to a dance class.

I thought he must have been held up at work, so I got the girls in and started cooking tea.

As time passed, I realised that inconsiderate though he is at times, I would probably have heard if he’d been that late finishing work.

So, I gave him a call. He didn’t answer, so I thought he was probably on his bike on the way home.

I checked twitter to see whether there were any problems with the traffic.

This was what I saw.

But the thing is, I was on my phone and something caught my eye so I zoomed in.

Just to the right of the ambulance, there’s a red motorbike by the hedge.

The same motorbike that hadn’t turned up on our drive.

I knew that my husband would have stopped if he’d seen an accident, but I also knew that with all the emergency services there, he would have let me know he was going to be late.

So as soon as I saw it I realised he’d been involved.

Minor accidents don’t really happen where motorbikes are concerned, and the tweet was quite specific about it being serious – they even put it in capital letters.

When the phone finally rang a few minutes later and I was told my husband was injured and on the way to hospital, I was pleased.

That sounds like a terrible thing to say, but when I saw that tweet I thought he was dead.

And there was nothing I could do other than carry on cooking the tea so I didn’t upset the children.

We chatted today at the hospital about the fact I’d found out on twitter.

He didn’t want anyone to ring me until he knew which hospital he was going to and whether he’d be airlifted. He didn’t want to worry me.

And shouldn’t he have the right to make that decision?

I understand that people need to know there has been an accident and they may need to avoid the area. I’d want to know too.

But was it acceptable for me to find out like that; was there any need for the photograph?

I know nothing about journalism, perhaps this is just what happens these days.

But I do know that for those few minutes, it didn’t feel okay.

I suppose things like this happen all the time, people finding out via social media that something has happened to a loved one.

Maybe that makes it all right.

Or maybe the local newspaper just didn’t realise it was an issue.

Perhaps it isn’t an issue at all.

But for me in those few minutes, it was.

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