The site has two main goals: 1. to help people enhance their worldview or perspective of global events; 2. to increase dialogue about international news and make the world smaller through conversation and interaction, both on this site and on Twitter.

The philosophy behind the site is “hyperlocal gone global.” There is an emphasis on what is happening in a specific place at a specific time and looks at how people are reacting to that event(s) in the area.

Barbara Iverson recently wrote about the site–which launched at the beginning of this year–for Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits:

[Breaking Tweets] is associated with the account Twitter.com/breakingtweets, but it takes Twitter messages to a new level. The site has just added Breaking Tweets Entertainment and Breaking Tweets Sports, and will soon add Breaking Tweets Chicago…

Breaking Tweets has human editors who manually select messages for inclusion in their stories. Furthermore, the editors treat the Tweets like quotes, weaving the 140 character missives into a comprehensive story on a news topic.From a “virtual newsroom,” the team keeps connected via e-mail and online.

Last month, BeatBlogging.org’s Lily Q interviewed BreakingTweets.com founder Craig Kanalley, a journalism grad student at DePaul University (the staff listed on the Breaking Tweet’s site mostly consists of journalism students).

Kanalley tells Lily that he first got the idea for the site after he “saw the amount of people twittering about Election Day and how Twitter can serve as a place for breaking news, very personal feelings and eyewitness accounts.”

A few more snippets from Kanalley:

Tweets are great because they are short, quick and, in many ways, they are just like quotes that journalists would often use anyway. They are instantaneous and, as a result, they work well with news in general, also across a wide geographic scope.

Breaking Tweets changes the practice because it focuses on editing the Web. There is so much clutter out there but it takes it all and seeks to make sense of it. I think a well done Breaking Tweets story can be just as valuable as a longer form traditional news story on the same subject. It gives a different glimpse into the story.

See the full interview here.

Don’t let the name fool you though, Breaking Tweets is not intended to “break the news.” In a blog post, Kanalley writes, “The point of the site I put together is to chronicle the biggest news around the world each day and put a Twitter spin on it by personalizing the news through tweets.”

But the site actually did scoop the BBC and CNN last week.  Read more about that here.

Breaking Tweets logo/BreakingTweets.com

You know these wannabe theater or movie star types. It’s that kid who had the lead in his or her high school play, who got bitten by the acting bug and just couldn’t shake it. After college, they find their way to Los Angeles or New York set on pursuing their passion, waiting tables or doing some other type of work that gives them the opportunity to hunt and hustle in the hopes of landing that big break.

Here’s what led me to think about the new commonalities between journalists and actors:

Both actors and journalists are frustrated that there are lots of people who are untrained in their lines of work and often willing to do it for free.

I recently attended a taping of The Kalb Report . This specific episode, titled “Down to the Wire: Journalism in Crisis,” featured a panel of news executives from CNN, NPR, the AP and the Knight Foundation. Discussion focused on the future of journalism, the impact of the economic crisis on journalism and other current uncertainties (transcript here). During the question and answer session, a Medill graduate said he feels a “little bit like an actor who’s watched reality stars take over prime time TV. They don’t do it as well as [professional actors] do, but they do it for free.”

Photo: gruntzooki/Flickr

Ultimately he asked the panel for advice for people who are trying to to break into journalism. The NPR executive’s response made journalism sound even more like acting, alluding to images of the “starving artist.” Vivian Schiller, the president and CEO of NPR, said, “Well, don’t give up. I mean, the good news– I mean, the bad news is you’re going to have trouble eating, as Tom said, for the next few years.”

It’s becoming more common to see journalists taking flexible or part-time jobs that allow them to pay the bills while they pursue their passion.

A friend who would like to work in journalism started following me on Twitter. This friend is also a Medill graduate — an interesting coincidence because it says a lot if graduates of one of the best and most well-known journalism schools in the country aren’t finding jobs in the industry. When I clicked on her Twitter page , I was taken aback by the blunt characterization of her professional activities in her bio. It reads, “Journalist in theory…Barista in practice.”

Her story certainly isn’t unique — just read this recent “Ask the Recruiter” question about transitioning from waiting tables to reporting on politics. In the answer, Joe Grim, notices the same thing I’m writing about here. “You sound like an actor on his way to Hollywood — not that there’s anything wrong with that,” he writes. Others are doing things differently in an effort to get them closer to securing a journalism job.

Regardless of the route, many journalists, like actors, are holding out for that dream of getting full-time work in their desired field. Of course, some have decided to leave journalism altogether to pursue other career paths. The creator of angryjournalist.com — Kiyoshi Martinez, a brilliant journalist now working in public affairs — is one such example. But that’s the subject of a separate post.