Twitter in the news

I understand that CNN, etc. have been reporting Twitter "tweets" in lieu of journalists' reports about the crackdown in Iran. The French actually had a reporter in-country who was filming and reporting on the sly. That report aired two nights ago on France 2 as part of their Envoyé Spécial program. No mention at all of Twitter. I thought the French weren't on the Twitter bandwagon (the Moroccans certainly aren't from what I can tell).

Then Michael Jackson died, and twenty minutes of the news the following evening was about his career and the reactions of fans. Then, and only then, did France 2 show shot after shot of tweets about his death. They also showed YouTube video tributes from fans that had been posted in the 20 or so hours after his death.

ICTs are big here, and there's an SMS langague for Arabic (spelled using Latin character and Arabic numerals), but I'm not sure how Twitter's doing in Morocco. I guess that will be one thing to watch and see.