Media Monitor: RNC tweets, Secret Service tip-offs and an ode to ‘Ameirca’!

Tweeting the RNC: Picking up where MnIndy’s Tom Elko left off, Twin Cities-based journalist Maryn McKenna looks at how Twitter, “the police scanner of 21st century newsroom,” aided RNC news coverage, working in props for local indymedia: “[I]t’s clear that smaller operations with much smaller budgets — the Minnesota Independent (funded by the nonprofit Center for Independent Media), The Uptake, and Twin Cities IndyMedia — not only kept up with the majors but often lapped them.”

Secret Service briefed MSM on RNC threats? MinnPost’s David Brauer points out shocking video of a WCCO cameraman freaking out on RNC protesters — captured on film by competitor KARE — while not realizing that the crowd was barring him because a man was having a seizure nearby. While many of us covering the RNC were on edge, Brauer shares a surprising reason that’s new to me: According to WCCO union steward Dave Chaney, the station was “getting emails from the Secret Service all day long that there were people in that crowd that were going to try to attack,” Chaney said. One threat involved a “gentleman who was supposed to be a black belt in karate who was going to try to assault one of us.” Funny: We in the independent media never got such Secret Service notifications.

Local heads top reporters’ org: St. Cloud Times reporter Dave Aeikens has takent the reins as president of the national Society for Professional Journalists. MN-SPJ has the video.

“Ameirca!” My favorite on-screen RNC typo.