OK, so everyone is on Twitter. Let’s take stock. I’d like to know what you’re doing with the tool as a journalist and in your newsroom – or what you’d like to do. Oh, and what good examples of its use have you seen? Comment away – let’s see if we can’t compile a useful collection of examples, experiences and ideas.
Twitter – what are you doing in your newsroom? What would you like to do?
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19 Comments
I am the only one using it in the Newsroom. Brilliant tool. Especially when you subscribe to, for example, NreakingNewsOn. You get the news when it is developing, very early on. That’s how we heard about a Taliban statement concerning Fitna, about Bertie Ahern stepping down. And you can use Twitter to mobilize people helping you with a problem
I’ve written some stories for Poynter Online and for my blog about how newsrooms are using Twitter:
“Newsies Twitter on Twitter”: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=128588
“Experimenting with Twitter: How Newsrooms Are Using It to Reach More Users”: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=128918
“How Twitter Can Help Journalists”: http://mallaryjeantenore.wordpress.com/2008/02/27/twitter-tips-how-twitter-can-help-journalists/
Hope that helps!
~Mallary Tenore
mtenore@poynter.org
I’m only a journalism student but I have dreams. I think it would be a good way for journalists to keep track of each other within an organization and where they need to be and who is where. It is also a way to keep up with some organizations, such as DowningStreet (U.K. government).
We have been using it for about a year for breaking news and niche content. The breaking news is becoming popular as our area picks-up Twitter users. The tinyurl in the Twitter feed takes readers to our mobile Web site – which is a bit of a disconnect if you are surfing via your PC, but is a huge help if you actually are Twittering on a cell phone.
twitter.com/nashuatelegraph (with mobile links)
twitter.com/telegraphsox (Red Sox stories)
twitter.com/telegraphpats (New England Patriots)
I use it to keep up with edge developments in social media, and how those might relate to business. Today I created a blog post about the business value of twitter by soliciting tweets on the topic from the people who follow me. http://advice.cio.com/blogs/difference_engine
En Ecuador en http://www.hoy.com.ec estoy haciendo una capacitación/asesoría a periodistas en twitter que terminó en una sección llamada justamente “Microblogging desde la Redacción”.
Esta práctica es inédita en el país y se realiza con el fin de lograr medios de convergencia o fusión de redacciones del impreso al on line.
Los periodistas hacen micro adelantos informativos que traen de sus fuentes y lo publican antes en twitter que va conectado al sitio de noticias.
Hemos logrado que aporte desde la redacción la sección de Actualidad, Internacional, Deportes y monitoreo, que servía para interno, twittea sus reportes
Estoy muy contento sobre todo porque ha sido un acercamiento a web 2.0 con resultados rápidos y fácil.
Saludos,
Christian Espinosa
Ej:
- http://twitter.com/hoyurgente
- http://twitter.com/hoydeportes
Tenemos un blog-twitter de prueba en
http://www.hoydeportes.coberturadigital.com
Resumen en
http://www.coberturadigital.com/2008/01/21/convergencia-de-redacciones-en-140-caracteres-o-periodismo-twitter-desde-diario-hoy-impreso/
TRANSLATE WITH GOOGLE
In Ecuador in http://www.hoy.com.ec am doing a training / advice to journalists in twitter ended in a section called just “Microblogging from the Editor.”
This practice is unheard of in the country and is carried out in order to achieve convergence means or merge the form of an essay online.
Journalists make micro advances that bring information from their sources and published earlier in twitter that is hooked to the news site.
We ensured that input from the editorial section of Politics, International Sports and monitoring, which was used for internal twittea their reports
I am very happy especially because it has been a rapprochement with Web 2.0 with fast results and easy.
Sincerely,
Christian Espinosa
Eg:
– Http://twitter.com/hoyurgente
– Http://twitter.com/hoydeportes
We have a blog-twitter Evidence
Http://www.hoydeportes.coberturadigital.com
Summary
Http://www.coberturadigital.com/2008/01/21/convergencia-de-redacciones-en-140-caracteres-o-periodismo-twitter-desde-diario-hoy-impreso/
I personally find it very useful to follow unfolding news. The track function is awesome for that.
Proffesionally, in my online newspaper, ADN.es, we’ve used to cover the Spanish presidential campaign in two ways. For updates from all media (not only our newspaper) with http://twitter.com/generales2008, and for a social TV watching event during the candidates debates on TV: http://www.adn.es/politica/elecciones_2008/debate and http://www.adn.es/politica/elecciones_2008/debatesegundo
When I travel to trade shows or other events, I use twitter to highlight topics I’ll cover later on in my blog – when I have more time to write. I’m an EiC for several technology trade journals.
I’ve been pushing to integrate Twitter with my site. To start, we created the Michigan Twitter Network -http://www.mlive.com/twitter/ – an account from our site that follows more than 1,300 Michigan twitterers. We’ve gained about 200+ followers and use this account @mlive to send breaking news alerts and also poll users.
We also have had success in tweeting sports events. We created the @detroit_tigers account and gained more than 90 followers in under a week. The response has been great from people on Twitter and even comments on the site where we are flowing the tweets feed.
I plan to post about it at the end of the week when I’ve rounded up all the results. Will let you know!
Other than that, we’re twittering several feeds from different sections of the site. Most of those are automatic, which is just another way to get our feeds syndicated.
I think twittering events is the real key. People love to know exactly what’s going on when they can’t be there.
We use twitter for our breaking news feed (twitter.com/slotribune) and I use twitter personally to talk to other bloggers and online journalists (twitter.com/kimbui)
My boss just figured out Twitter and everyone else in the building is still confused about it, from what i can tell.
I use it as a what’s happening now tool in various realms of interest, breaking national news (cnn & AP), what’s going on in my community, what other Twittering journalists are talking about and what’s the latest tech buzz.
It works!
twitter worked well for terminal 5 blog:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1310773,00.html
As a freelance journalist, I have used Twitter in a variety of ways. I wrote a piece for Press Gazette about Twitter last year, here:
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=37951
I also wrote a piece for the Guardian here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/may/17/guardianweeklytechnologysection.socialnetworking
Twitter became a bit of a specialism and I also wrote a piece for the Telegraph about how you can get a job through social networking sites.
I wrote about the surprise of building this specialism here:
http://www.freelancewritingtips.com/2007/05/building_a_spec.html
I wrote for a now defunct blog called twitterati.tv
Listing these – I can see how quickly time moves on!
I am still using Twitter, and like to try and promote what I’m up to, providing updates on writing projects and job opportunities etc to readers of my freelance writing blog, as well as updates on a blog dedicated to a parenting subject.
I hope this may be food for thought for someone.
Cheers
Twitter is both the perfect journalist tool for being first with breaking news, and the best relief from the tyranny of breaking news.
There is no way to faster publish the most important fact of a breaking news. 140 chars is not much, but enough.
I first did this in Norwegian my breaking story on Norway filing a formal protest against the Yes to OOXML vote.
First I sent out a Twitter message, and then I wrote the complete story. This allowed me to calmly write the story with all the necessary details.
I’ve written more about my experiences with Twitter journalism at my blog.
I experimented using Twitter to semi-liveblog a board meeting via texting. I’m really mixed on the results- I’m not the most proficient texter out there, so that creates some problems.
I’d like to see where I could take this, particularly since utilizing Twitter could be a big catalyst to a publication’s mobile news ventures.
For our local newspaper in Peterborough UK, I would like to find out how many people locally twitter, and how many ex pats would be interested, before using the tool as a breaking news feed.
Although it doesn’t take much time once up and running, it all adds up in terms of overall workload for the newsroom.
@Richard – have you tried Twitterlocal.net?
The Guardian assigned a fairly large number of reporters to cover the London G20 protests, and got them live tweeting. Paul Lewis (@paul__lewis), who has worked so hard covering the death of Ian Tomlinson, was one of them. Perhaps Paul or some of the other Grauniad hacks or editors might have some useful insight for this discussion?
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