Tactic 1: Follow the Experts

Regardless of where the story is, there are a few foreign editors who are always worth following on Twitter because they excel at keeping up with international news and analysis across the globe. These include Politico’s Blake Hounshell¹⁰ and BuzzFeed’s Miriam Elder.¹¹ Robert Mackey of the New York Times does an excellent job curating social media content on all kinds of breaking news, including international stories.¹² The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Jillian C. York follows Internet freedom issues around the world,¹³ while Zeynep Tufekci of the University of North Carolina offers smart insights on how technology intersects with social phenomena like protest and political change, a common theme in many contemporary conflicts.¹⁴

On a specific story, though, you also need to follow the tweets of local reporters, activists, and citizens on the ground. Look for names in the initial research you do. One of the noticeable patterns on Twitter is that whenever a major breaking news event begins overseas, experts and foreign news geeks who already know that region immediately start retweeting sources with whom they are familiar. That doesn’t mean everything they cite is reliable, but their sources are worth a good look and an investment of shoe leather (or thumb taps) to check out what they report.

In the Syrian uprising, I quickly found and followed experts on the country like Randa Slim,¹⁵ Andrew Tabler,¹⁶ Rime Allaf,¹⁷ and Joshua Landis.¹⁸ I also looked for journalists who were covering the story like Rania Abouzeid,¹⁹ Liz Sly,²⁰ Maisa Akbik,²¹ and Javier Espinosa.²² I followed activists inside and outside the country. Some were known, like Rami Jarrah²³ and Mohammed Al Abdullah.²⁴ Others tweeted anonymously, but over time I was able to verify the reliability of those like BSyria²⁵ and THE_47th.²⁶ Eventually, I pulled all these sources and others together into a Twitter list that helped me follow the story over time.