Viral coverage by Al Jazeera English — #HowToSellAMassacre
How we used Twitter to break the story of our undercover investigation into the US and Australian gun lobby.
Al Jazeera reporter went undercover in a three-year investigation of the US’ powerful gun lobby’s strategies to promote firearms ownership.
Telling the story of our three-year investigation on Twitter.
Days after the Christchurch mosque massacre, New Zealand banned assault rifles. In Australia, however, right-wing groups were pushing to weaken the country’s strict gun control laws by promoting the politics of fear.
Who helped them? The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) — a powerful and wealthy lobby that was advising them on how to influence politicians and the media. It even advocated smearing those who campaign to restrict gun sales in the wake of a mass shooting.
We went undercover for three years to reveal the far-reaching influence of the NRA and expose how the US and Australian gun lobbies operate behind closed doors.
But how to tell the story effectively?
With the deluge of information available to users today, it is important to be able to cut through and provide the key elements in a social-friendly and easy to understand manner.
We utilised a number of social assets, including social cards, clips and images to make the information accessible and easy to follow.
Using a Twitter Thread, we exclusively revealed the story in a user-friendly format.
Soon after publishing the Twitter Thread, #HowToSellAMassacre became the top trend in Australia, and the fourth worldwide.
‘Al Jazeera’ was among the top trending keywords in Australia shortly after the Twitter thread was published.
