It still surprises me that individual journalists block each other, block me, on Twitter. It shocks me that a TV station blocks me from it's station account. Shocking and surprising, but not stopping me. 

If I care about what you have to say on Twitter, I am following you even if you've blocked me.

There is no reason we journalists should be blocking each other. It just feels petty to me that efforts are taken to block journalists. Your effort of blocking me isn't even slowing me down from seeing your tweets. 

Okay, my little rant is over. Way beyond my rant is how Twitter can/should be used by all journalists. Here are a few suggestions on how to use Twitter when dealing with the Twitter block or using for investigative journalism.

Unless you have a private account, anyone who's been blocked can still see those tweets by checking the account's twitter stream without being logged into Twitter. 

All journalists should use Twitter as a news gathering tool, an investigative tool. Just as you use undercover, unmarked news vehicles, you need to be using unmarked, unbranded twitter accounts as well. 

I have a few twitter accounts. Some active. Some not. But all are following specific groups of people/accounts.

Due to the wonderful social media management apps I have all of these accounts lined up so on one screen I see everything I've been blocked from seeing on my main account @MistyMontano.

I have private lists on these other accounts, so while it looks like I'm on twitter interested only in my home.. or in a specific hobby.. or whatever… I'm actually following my private lists. 

Lists don't show you the tweets that start with an @ reply to someone unless my account is following both of those accounts. So even though I have my lists up I often check the twitter streams of the accounts I care about to make sure I'm not missing something. (FYI: other than this, lists are the way to survive Twitter!)

Private Twitter lists don't let you know you've been listed - only public lists. You can see all the public lists to which you've been added. You can't see the private lists that list you.

I find suspects in cases on Twitter all the time. I haven't found one yet that uses Twitter extensively, but what is there gives us insight into that suspect and into the suspects circles. I'm not going to follow these accounts as myself, but I will as one of my other accounts just so I can listen.  Undercover Misty!