If you follow any mainstream media Twitter accounts on Twitter, when was the last time you received an @mention or @reply from one of them? If you answered never, you’re in the majority.

A new study from the Pew Research Center’s Project in Excellence in Journalism shows that mainstream media rarely uses Twitter to engage or share links from sources other than their own websites, instead preferring to tweet broadcast-like messages of the news of the day.
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No, he’s not dead: but the trending topics on Twitter would have us think that legendary Rolling Stones rocker Mick Jagger had passed away. Wednesday morning, “RIP Mick Jagger” was a worldwide trending topic, giving many music-lovers a small heart attack when they logged in to Twitter.com today.
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Areal footage of armored vehicles chasing down notorious drug traffickers in one of Rio de Janeiro’s several favelas made its way across the airwaves this weekend, as police operations cracked down on the illegal drug trade there. However, because of a police perimeter and other factors, mainstream media couldn’t enter the favela to report from the ground, and Brazilians were left wondering what exactly was happening to the estimated 65,000 people living in the Complexo do Alemao favela.

But that all changed when a 17-year-old Twitter user began tweeting about the gunfire, smoke and the community reaction through his impromptu news network within the favela.
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