Dorothy Parvaz, a reporter for Al Jazeera English, spent 19 days in custody after being detained in Syria and Iran before being freed early Wednesday. The first photos of her surfaced on Twitter.
The news of her release was covered by outlets around the world, most of them using file photos of Parvaz.
Her co-worker Nasser Al-Saadi, a news analyst, uploaded the first pictures of Parvaz to Twitter from his iPhone.
Parvaz, who looks healthy if a bit tired wearing jeans and a black jacket, celebrated her release with cake at Al Jazeera headquarters in Doha.
This is the latest example of Twitter functioning as a de facto news wire. In a sense, the social media company “scooped” Al Jazeera by getting the first images of Parvaz before she could even make it on air.