GMA News exceeds 1 million Twitter followers

 
In the Philippines, GMA News and Public Affairs’ official Twitter account (@gmanews) has become the Pinoy netizen’s most followed Twitter account for breaking news. The account reached one million followers last August 20.
 
But on big news days, such as the great habagat flood, the verdict in the Corona trial, and the death of Jesse Robredo, @gmanews can double or even triple its daily new followers average, demonstrating that it is the go-to account for tweeps hungry for Philippine news. 
 
GMA's vice president for multimedia journalism Howie Severino says building scale on Twitter is just a means to an end. "One of our main responsibilities as a media organization is to filter the anarchy of information on Twitter so that we spread only accurate information,” he says. 
 
In addition to being a lightning-fast distribution platform, Twitter is a powerful engine for news discovery for GMA News, where leads on deaths, new officials, and other events are often first sniffed by news hounds. During the floods of last July, some desperate victims needing rescue tweeted GMA News which relayed their online cries so they were seen by authorities. 
 
The official Twitter account of GMA News and Public Affairs was launched in May 2009, in time to tweet some of the biggest news of the decade, including the death and wake of Cory Aquino, the Ondoy floods, and the Maguindanao massacre. 
 
Follow GMA News and Public Affairs on Twitter through its official account @gmanews or visit GMA News Online via www.gmanews.tv.