Web Journalist Blog

On Sept. 1, 2010, James J. Lee walked into One Discovery Place armed with pistols and explosives. Here is a sample of tweets sent from the zip code of The Discovery Channel’s headquarters in D.C. These sample messages are collected from Twitter Search and listed in chronological order with a PDT *timestamp.

These are typical citizens that dabble in Twitter. The majority had less than 100 followers. For examples, one user has 46 followers and had only had 47 tweets at the time. These folks are not social media gurus… they are regular, real folks.

* I noticed that the timestamp varied between the Chrome and FireFox browsers. These screen shots were taken with FireFox.

For the last few months I’ve been giving a presentation on How to Harness the Power of Social Media or Advance Social Media Reporting or what I called (and still need to refine) Real-Time Reporting.

In the presentation, I introduce how social media tools like Twitter, FourSquare and even YourOpenBook.org can help improve our reporting.

I know I am guilty of it at times, but I hate when people vaguely talk about how great new tools are but don’t give concrete examples… so for this particular session I try to outline actual steps/scenarios on how to actually use these things in real life.

During #wjchat episode 22, I was asked how do you actually crowdsource… I rattled off five steps that capture what I tell folks during my presentation.

In cased you missed those tweets, here they are… slightly longer than 140:

Step 1:

The moment you know you are going to an assignment/event/location, announce it. Tell people you are covering the event and ask who is attending. The sooner, the better… and do it multiple times… without looking like a crazy spammer.

Step 2:

When you arrive to the scene, tweet that you are there… again, ask who is there too. The point is to find sources! Also, get people to join your reporting… ask for tips, suggestions and possible questions.

Step 3:

Give updates from the scene… not only text, but send out images and videos when applicable. Again, do a call out for tips, suggestions and questions. You are giving people direct access and getting them an opportunity to get involved.

Step 4:

When you are done, tell people when they can expect to see or read your completed, “official” piece. And, if you got responses, thank people for their help.

Step 5:

After piece runs, ask for feedback, comments, thoughts and tips. Engage with your community before, during and after these acts of journalism… be genuine and social in social media!

 

Additional tips:

— Make sure you use hashtags throughout the process! Either use the established one or create a logical one the community would use.

— You may or may not get responses, but doing this doesn’t cost you ANYTHING. Remember, it takes less than a minute per tweet!

— If you get responses, don’t feel forced to use them, but be grateful you have people engaged enough that they want to HELP you. Make sure you response and thank them. I have a few examples of how crowd sourcing has helped reporters do simple, routine stories. Makes your job EASIER! And makes you more relevant and valuable to the community… which routinely translates to job security. (Well, it should.)

— Everyone knows that “If your mom says she loves you, check it out.” That old journalism saying applies to tweets, as well as your mom. Just because someone tweets that they are there or gives you a juicy tidbit of info, it does not mean that it is fact. Check it out! What do we call this… reporting! Do some of that. If you get lazy, you get burned. More importantly, credibility is hard to build, but easy to lose.

And remember, these tweets/communications took only moments… think about it. Fifteen minutes can make all the difference.

Here’s a PDF of my Social Network Reporting presentation.

 

Get past the awkward and dark predetermined searches like “I hate my boss,” “I lost my virginity” and “I’m not a racist but” … and look at what youropenbook.org presents to us as journalists.

While the 105 million+ people on Twitter know their tweets are default set to public, they are still a fraction of Facebook’s 400 million+ users that post T.M.I. they’d only share with their closest 300 friends.

Facebook gives you a false sense of private… but by now you should know better.

The walls around the Facebook garden have crumbled because of the company’s seriously flawed privacy settings.

And while as a user you should be freaked out and proactive about your personal settings (and more conscious of what you are posting!), as a journalist this is presents an incredible, unfiltered opportunity to access your community on a diversity of topics.

Hold your nose and thank youropenbook.org for making it easier to access your the community on Facebook – for better or worse.

You can now quickly query what’s on the mind of the millions of users that are sharing their raw opinions about any topic… sadly, they usually think it’s “private,” often sharing their opinions with their social guard down.

Here’s a quick search on the some newsy topics.

Arlen Specter

Bangkok, Thailand

Illegal immigrants

Even boring old healthcare.

Go to the site and do a search on something related to your beat or community. Who knows how long this tool will actually last (Facebook has sued before).

But while this is still around, look passed the initial shallowness of the tool and look at the possibilities that help you improve your journalism.

Oh, and do yourself a favor and check your privacy settings on Facebook… come to think of it, just check your privacy at the door before you log onto the Web. It’s all public… whether you like it or not.