Twitter and PBS team up to livestream Donald Trump's inauguration as president

Twitter has announced on Thursday (12 January) that it will live-stream Donald Trump's inauguration as president of the United States in partnership with PBS NewsHour on 20 January.

"Twitter is where news and politics are discussed in real time every day, and we're excited to collaborate with PBS NewsHour around this historic event to bring public broadcasting's live coverage to Twitter," Anthony Noto, COO at Twitter, said in a statement.

"NewsHour's broadcast will integrate dependable, thorough coverage with the live Inauguration Day conversation on Twitter."

The six-hour coverage will be anchored by NewsHour managing editor Judy Woodruff along with NewsHour correspondents John Wang reporting from the US Capitol and Lisa Desjardins from the National Mall.

It will cover the swearing of Trump as the 45th president of the United States and Mike Pence as vice president at the US Capitol, the Inaugural Address and Parade and Trump's official arrival at the White House.

The coverage will also feature a panel of analysts commenting on the Inauguration Day's events including New York Times columnist David Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, PBS NewsHour Weekend special correspondent Jeff Greenfield, American Conservative Union chair Matt Schlapp, Cook Political Report's Amy Walter, the interim director of GW's Graduate School of Political Management Lara Brown and @MoveOn national spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre.

"The peaceful transition of power from one president to the next is a powerful moment in the American democratic process," NewsHour senior producer and WETA senior vice president Sara Just said. "And this year, it comes at a time when the country is embroiled in political discourse like we have rarely seen.

"Steaming public broadcasting's thoughtful coverage on Twitter will allow Americans to experience the inauguration and join in discussion around it."

Over the course of the election campaign, Twitter has livestreamed the conventions, debates as well as the presidential election in November. The platform also played a significant role in Trump's bid for the White House where the president-elect often took to Twitter to speak directly to voters, avoid traditional media and criticise his opponents.

However, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was notably missing at the meeting between Trump and several high-profile tech leaders at Trump Tower in December. Some of the executives present at the summit included Apple's Tim Cook, Alphabet's Larry Page, Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Oracle's Safra Catz among others.

Citing a source close to the situation, Politico reported that Twitter was "bounced" from the meeting because it did not approve an emoji version of the hashtag #CrookedHillary during the election campaign.

Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer denied the report, telling MSNBC's Steve Kornacki that the "conference table was only so big". A spokesman for Trump's transition team also told Reuters that Twitter was not invited "because they aren't big enough".

Trump Inauguration Committee chairman Tom Barrack recently told reporters that the historic event will be "beautiful" and have a "much more poetic cadence than having a circus-like celebration that's a coronation".

Viewers will be able to access the stream at inauguration.twitter.com or via the PBS NewsHourpage (@NewsHour) from 11AM to 5PM EST on Friday, 20 January.