Posted by Kelly Fincham at 9/16/2009 12:04 PM EDT

Several people hurt in Luas crash in Dublin

Today's crash between a Luas and a bus in Dublin city center (just along from the GPO) is the perfect example of Twitter's growing role in breaking news.

I found out about the crash from Twitter and we were able to post a story online at about the same time as the bigger media outlets did.

The Irish Independent was one of the first to report the crash - as it should have given how close the offices are.

But we were still able to post a similar story at the same time with far fewer resources.

One journalist told Twitter she was following the story on her phone from her seat on a bus in Southern Spain.

I don't know where Twitter will bring us but it looks as if it's going to have the same effect on our media world as the telegraph did on even older media in the 1800s.