"With Twitter though, one senior reporter using a standard mobile phone can keep an entire section of our site instantly updated with the very latest breaking news," said Christian Dunn, digital editor of the Evening Leader in the UK.

Although they may have smaller budgets, "This means that regional newspapers, like the Evening Leader, can finally break news just as fast as the big boys - even Sky and the BBC."

After using Twitter to cover soccer games, the Evening Leader reported on the local election results by 'Twittering' from the region's counts.

Senior reporter Mike Youds reported from the Flintshire count throughout the night of May 1, filing in his reports using his mobile phone.

Online readers could follow news about the election by visiting the Evening Leader's Twitter profile page, or by going through a specially designed page on the Evening Leader's website that had the Twitter feed embedded in it.

According to Deputy editor Martin Wright, the website's efficient use of Twitter also helped to improve the print paper production.

"It was great for everyone in the newsroom to know that they'd been the first in the area to break the results and allowed us to concentrate on strong reaction and colour pieces in the next day's newspaper."

It has been a little over a year that Twitter was first hailed as a potential breakthrough for online journalism. It now seems that some newspapers, including the Evening Leader, are beginning to harness its power.

Source: holdthefrontpage.co.uk through IFRA Executive News Service