“It’s exactly the right time to start tweeting Amnesty news for journalists who want real-time human rights updates” - Mike Blakemore, Amnesty media director

Winners of Amnesty’s annual media awards will be tweeted live from 2 June ceremony

Amnesty International UK is launching “@NewsFromAmnesty ”, a dedicated Twitter channel for journalists to coincide with its annual Media Awards event on Tuesday 2 June.

The organisation is already active on Twitter but is introducing its dedicated Twitter channel for journalists in response to the growth in media outlets looking for “real time” news from the micro-blogging network.

The Amnesty Media Awards - covering ten categories across print, broadcast and online journalism formats - are in their 18th year but this will be the first time that winners are announced in real-time live from the event, this year at the British Film Institute in central London from 8pm on 2 June.

Amnesty International UK Media Director Mike Blakemore said:

“I think it’s exactly the right time to start tweeting Amnesty news for journalists who want real-time human rights updates.

“At Amnesty we’ve been excited by the growth of human rights activism in social media communications and we know that journalists are also keen to get Amnesty’s communications delivered via networks like Twitter.

“Sending updates via ‘NewsFromAmnesty’ won’t mean a drop-off in accuracy and impartiality, it just means that our news will get out even faster.”

Amnesty International UK has over 4,500 followers of its main Twitter channel @AmnestyUK, but @NewsFromAmnesty is intended especially for journalists and those interested in human rights and the media. The organisation has been mobilising human rights activism through social media for several years and its community website protectthehuman.com alone has over 10,000 registered users.

Since the summer of 2007 Amnesty International UK’s media unit has been posting daily updates to a dedicated media news blog ( https://blogs.amnesty.org.uk/pressblog and the team also works closely with a 500-strong network of bloggers keen to discuss and disseminate human rights news.

Follow Amnesty International UK news at @NewsFromAmnesty. /p>

For more information on the Amnesty International UK media awards

Amnesty International UK media information:
Neil Durkin: 020 7033 1547, neil.durkin@amnesty.org.uk br />Steve Ballinger: 020 7033 1548, steve.ballinger@amnesty.org.uk br />Out of hours: 07721 398984, www.amnesty.org.uk /p>