Category: Journalism

How journalists can follow the story/find contacts online

(a few notes/ideas of using online resources for journalism from a recent 30 minute workshop with 2nd year Online Journalism students) – this is by no means definitive, so feel free to add any suggestions, comments below

There are so many ways a journalist can follow the story, search for contacts or get leads online – but starting off is the hardest part.

In this blog post I’l be running through a few very easy steps to jumping in – often using tools you may already be aware of.

SOCIAL NETWORKS

eg Twitter, Facebook (less mainstream ones mentioned in Other Tools below)
YOUR PROFILE
I would suggest having a professional account, especially if you already have an account and use it for day to day chatting to friends, posting pictures of nights out etc.
If you need convincing – perhaps these reasons will help:
Reason 1 – potential to upset bosses

Countless examples of people being fired for criticizing their bosses, talking about getting another job. being unprofessional, being offensive etc. drunk pictures, sweary tweets. keep them separate.
This doesn’t mean you cant be human on your professional tweet, just not an animal.

Reason 2 – your company could claim ownership of your followers

Recently a man was sued for his followers, He was using his own account to promote the companys work – when he left, they wanted him to leave his Twitter account, and his followers, behind.

Reason 3 - Content may not be suitable for your personal account

Friends don’t necessarily want to see your work
some may not like the work you are doing … may not be suitable
Imagine youre doing research on neo-fascists – and you decide to follow a few groups for research – do you want your friends seeing that?
Now, whether that is true or not – it shows that if you are searching for something a little unsavoury, illegal etc or dealing with people, it is best to have a separate account.

Name: If you already have an account using your full name, consider changing it to a nickname, and using your full name on your professional account – remember, a potential employer/contact will probably do a search for you – which account do you want them to find?

Also, avoid a username that alludes to your current situation – eg Davethestudent, or JohnBCU – in 2/3 years you won’t be a student any more. Also avoid employer names for the same reason.

picture – I would choose something clear and recognizable – it’s amazing how many people at events will come over because they’ve seen you on Twitter.

So now you have your account set up, the question is …

WHO TO FOLLOW

Who’s on there

celebrities
councils
MPs
sports
experts
other journalists

General advice

you’ll end up following lots of people
don’t be afraid to stop following people if your interest changes
e.g. you’re working on an education story – so you’ll follow lots of teachers  - for example. once the story is over, you don’t need to keep getting their updates
use lists  - group the types of people you are interested in so you can see them all together

Finding that first person
  • name search people/organizations/publications you know
  • check articles on the subject  - is the writer online?
  • check organizations websites – a lot now promote their social network accounts
  • Google search subject area + social network name …
Next step

Youve now found someone to follow …
  • check their profile – they may have other accounts, organizations mentioned
  • who are they following? (very useful) who follows them? (not as useful)
  • Lists – the lists they follow and the lists they are a member of – find similar people
  • look through some of their tweets – who are they talking to / replying to?
WHAT FOLLOW

Hashtags (Twitter)

As well as following people, you can follow events (whether temporary or ongoing) with hashtags. These are words, preceeded by a #, which users use to show the subject of their tweet.

With certain services you can search and follow hashtags .. which can be set up for TV shows (eg #xfactor, or for individual conferences, events.

Lists (Facebook, twitter)

If you find a list of interesting people, you can follow the whole list, instead of the individual people. Again, certain readers let you do this.

Groups (Facebook, LinkedIn, google groups)

Join groups, follow conversations, get involved …

HOW TO MANAGE

Ideally this shouldn’t be something you are sitting down to do once a day, but you are notified about updates as-and-when, to suit you

Various ways to interact with Social networks
  • official website – Facebook.com, twitter.com
  • phone app – eg Boxcar for Iphone (covers Facebook, Twitter, email etc) – most smartphones have built in notifications for Facebook/Twitter or apps you can add
  • computer desktop application – eg Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Destroytwitter
  • via SMS
  • via email notifications
DestroyTwitter2 - http://bit.ly/ykTwOX

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RSS FEEDS

a way to keep an eye on websites without having to keep checking them

Sign up to a Google Reader account

Ways to Subscribe
  • search for subject area/names via SUBSCRIBE button
  • manually add URL via the Subscribe button
  • click on an orange RSS button on a website
  • click on RSS button on URL bar in browser (most show if there is an RSS feed available now)
How to Read those feeds

Google Reader, but many other RSS readers sync with your Google Reader account
  • Google Reader website
  • desktop reader – eg Feedemon, RSS Bandit
  • phone app – eg Feedler, Feedly, Flipboard
  • online readers – (list from Geek Adda http://bit.ly/w6Amie)
____________________

They Work for you

 Allows you to keyword search MP’s speeches in Parliament

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GOOGLE ALERTS

A way of keeping an eye on whats happening

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OTHER TOOLS

LinkedIn Specifically
How Journalists Can Use LinkedIn http://tnw.co/ypyo3e

Useful to have professionally
good for job hunting

find company contacts – and approach
Follow companies
Browse company stats

Also

Youtube, Flickr, Soundcloud (music site) – a lot of content – a source for contacts

Quora –  a questions and answers website – very professional. not as busy as it was but still useful

Meetups.com – people organising meetups – useful for finding sources, interviewees, interest/action groups

Podcasts – Itunes … search for subject areas – a lot of interesting content

New website launch > The Hidden City

An interesting project to emerge in this time when questions are being asked about the role of the mainstream media is The Hidden City. It is a website covering the hidden stories of Birmingham through audio slideshows (a slideshow of relevant photographs with an audio track underneath).

The brainchild of the guys behind Fourseventy Media, a local media production company specializing in audio, The Hidden City is a not-for profit project funded by donations and sponsorship. All money raised will go back into the project to cover costs, (eg travel expenses)

With local newspapers shutting down and broadcast newsrooms co-locating out of the region, this site hopes to focus attention back on the local people, stories and events happening across the region and are inviting the public to submit story ideas. Once these ideas are submitted, the site will either assign it to one of their reporters, or help the member of the public to cover it themselves.

Checking the site out at today’s launch, at Brewsmiths Coffee shop in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, there are a handful of stories up there, as produced by the FourSeventy Media guys, and a small army of local media/tech students from Birmingham City University. Reports currently on the site deal with subjects including squatters rights, the history of UB40, an old-school barbers shop and street sport.

Right now these are accessible through ”pins on a map”, housed on the front page (See screengrab below) – although they are not categorized into subject area/themes. (there are plans for themed/colour coded pins in the future)

I was concerned about the issue of quality control. Right now, the site houses some top notch content – produced by a professional company, and students trained by them. I was assured that content standards would remain high, and that all submitted work would be either produced entirely in-house, or under supervision/editorial guidance from the in house team. There is also common sense here – with the guys clearly going for quality over quantity – there will be 2/3 audio slideshows (or audio/video in the future) uploaded her month.

Overall, it is an interesting project and I wish them all the luck!

The Changing Role of a Journalist – a few thoughts

What is the role of the journalist in today’s world?

During the Birmingham riots, when a huge amount of rumour and speculation was being passed around the social networks (Riot rumours – Guardian), should the local media have also stepped in to set the records straight?

Many believe that journalists should only deal with news — a rumour is not news, and should be left alone.

This may have been the case before the era of social networks and citizen journalists – when the journalists had the monopoly on the information reaching the public, and to mention “rumour” was to give it credence.

However, today – thanks to the power of the online world, rumour has credence without the journalists being involved.

Consider this example: a station is evacuated due to a suspect package. Word breaks online and spreads quickly. Traditionally we would turn to our the established news outlets (local radio, local newspaper website etc) for confirmation or, at least, information. However, if they are saying nothing about it because nothing has been confirmed, then that organization will quickly lose its reputation. Concerned parties will instead continue to believe the information being passed around online.

Those local news outlets should be on Twitter and Facebook saying what they know about this situation. They should besaying that the station has been evacuated. They should also be passing on information as they receive it.  Granted, it probably won’t make a story, but people are talking about it – hence it deserves attention.

Now we are left with a situation where minute-to-minute updates are handled by the sources themselves (police, Government, NHS) and an army of citizen journalists.

It is no wonder that local/regional news outlets are losing their grip on their regions – when there are other sources of information not concerned with filling pages, and maintaining exclusives.