Here's a crowdsourced list of sites and tools that journalists are using in their work. The links point to articles that explain how journalists use these tools.
(Published Feb. 16, 2012.) 
“Statistics show that we are watching fewer videos on YouTube. However, we are watching longer videos and subsequently spending more time on the site. ... Another concern for YouTube is that its video views have decreased every month this year. After a record traffic year in 2011 and an all-time peak of 21.8 billion video views served in January, monthly views started to go backwards. ... The good news is that engagement on YouTube is up. The amount of minutes users spend watching YouTube has grown 57% year-over-year ...”
(Published May 22, 2012.) "Hangouts on Air is a built-in feature for hangouts to stream your hangout within Google+ and YouTube records it. The recorded video then will be available on your YouTube Account after the Hangout has ended. The Google+ post will then contain the recorded video once it's processed for prosperity and possibly better SEO rankings and traffic for your YouTube page."
(Published May 7, 2012.) Via danmason 
“If Socialcam and Viddy are in a race for the top, Klip is the quiet kid who's hanging back and observing, waiting for his moment to pounce. This app isn't clean like Viddy or busy like Socialcam; it's just practical.”
(Published May 2, 2012.) “When should journalists use their personal social media accounts and when should they use the branded newsroom accounts? ... I see two primary issues here: effective crowdsourcing strategy and control of staff members and their work.”
Advice from Steve Buttry, director of community engagement and social media, Digital First Media.
(Published March 2, 2012.) 
When BBC News political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg left the BBC to join ITV News, she had to abandon her Twitter account and start a new one for her new job.
(Published June 2011.) 
“Facebook's New York-based journalism programme manager Vadim Lavrusik is on a three-countries-in-three-days tour of Europe. When in London on Monday (23 April) he shared his tips on how journalists can best make use of the platform. Here are his 10 suggestions:”
(Published April 25, 2012.) 
Here a tutorial on using Google+ Hangouts for business ... but the tips apply to newsrooms too.
"While Google+ Hangouts allow you to connect with up to nine people, the Hangouts on Air feature lets you live broadcast to an unlimited audience. Once the on-air hangout is completed, it automatically becomes a draft recorded video in your YouTube account where you can edit it and then publish on your YouTube channel, and then of course share it from there."
(Published April 26, 2012.) Via danmason Links to the full PDF of the news agency's guidelines for journalists: 8 pages, 287 KB.
It adds “procedures for correcting erroneous tweets and a short section on deleting tweets. Also, in the examples in the section on retweeting, the placement of the designation ‘RT’ has been moved to conform with more common Twitter usage.”
(Published Jan. 17, 2012) 
This short list was written by Ben LaMothe, who blogs for 10,000 Words. Example:
"Knowing What Stories Get Good Traction On Social Media Sites:
"Not every story you write, shoot or take video for, will translate well on social media sites. But there’s a skill to knowing an online community, and having a sense of what will resonate with that audience on that platform, and what is less likely to have an impact."
(Published April 10, 2012.) 
"Marc Lynch, an expert on Middle Eastern media at George Washington University, says social media and satellite television worked together to draw attention to the Arab spring. Social media spread images of protesters in Tunisia that might otherwise have been suppressed by the regime, he wrote on his blog at Foreign Policy. 'But it was the airing of these videos on Al Jazeera … which brought those images to the mass Arab public and even to many Tunisians who might otherwise not have realised what was happening.'
"The staff in Al Jazeera’s Arabic and English newsrooms had, as it happened, undergone intense social-media training only the month before."
(Published July 7, 2011.) This is an excellent article from The Economist, focusing on the relationship between journalism and social media. 
"[I]n early January [2012], Google launched ‘Search Plus Your World,’ which elevates Google social shares in all users’ Google search results. Aside from a whole host of privacy and anti-trust concerns it raised, this (in my view) put a gun to the heads of journalists and news brands, forcing them onto Google+ for the sake of raising their stories and profiles in search results." Via danmason 
"This how-to features advice from a panel of experts on the key considerations, questions and tools journalists should have in mind when carrying out verification of content that surfaces via social media, be it a news tip, an image, a piece of audio or video.
"The process covers three main stages: monitoring of social networks and the online community before news breaks, checking the content when it comes into play and subsequently reporting that content once verified. The comprehensive advice outlined in this how-to guide offers practical steps, specific questions and cross-checks journalists can make at each stage, as well as online tools to support them."
(Published April 3, 2012.) |
“[Vice president of product for Google+ Bradley] Horowitz wants to increase the power its own post-processing tools, making image editors scalable so that an amateur can use them as easily as a professional photographer. Replacing the very segmented image editing market and creating a tool that is equal parts Instagram, Lightroom, and Photoshop is an especially ambitious (perhaps naive) idea.” Via zackrizmanic 
“The New York Times reporter anticipated people on Twitter missing the nuance of her ideas, so she came prepared. ... As slides appeared on the big screen behind Amy O’Leary, @amyoleary would somehow — magically — tweet out expertly compressed summaries of her ideas, right on cue. They were live footnotes, a real-time narrative surprise.”
(Published May 22, 2012.) 
“He is like the host of a daylong radio show, except no one speaks out loud. He rarely makes phone calls. His phone almost never rings.
“Some of what he writes is air and sugar. Some of it is wrong or incomplete or misleading. But he delivers jolts of sharp, original insight often enough to hold the attention of a high-powered audience that includes economists like The Times columnist Paul Krugman and Wall Street heavies like the hedge-fund manager Douglas Kass and the bond investor Jeff Gundlach.”
(Published May 10, 2012.) This is a New York Times profile of a financial blogger who works 16-hour days, often writing 15 posts in one day. 
Eric Carvin, the Associated Press social media editor, wants all of AP's 2,500 journalists to use social media and use it well.
(Published May 3, 2012.) Via Andy Bull 
“Want an easy way to track the top news stories on social media? Storyful’s new iPhone apps helps you search by top keywords (currently Cairo, Egypt and Obama), regions and date.You are then presented with the stories as curated by the Storyful editorial team.”
(Published May 2, 2012.) 
The Hub (“a resource center for community-based and nonprofit journalism”) has put together a list of seven tips to help you think about how to use Pinterest in your news operation.
(Published April 8, 2012.) The post also provides links to several media organizations’ pinboards. Verifying social media content “involves some new tools and techniques, and requires a basic understanding of the way networks operate and how people use them. It also requires many of the so-called old school values and techniques that have been around for a while: being skeptical, asking questions, tracking down high quality sources, exercising restraint, collaborating and communicating with team members.”
(Published April 27, 2012.) Craig Silverman provides an introduction to the topic and then an annoatated list of eight articles/blog posts that add clarity and examples. HT: Steve Buttry. 
“Gawker has implemented a new comment system that doesn’t ask you to link your Facebook, LinkedIn, Airbnb and Pinterest profiles before you comment.” How can they keep the conversation civil? Some ideas in this post from the Future Journalism Project.
(Published April 2012.) 
“I talked with Alexis Mainland, social media editor at The NY Times, to learn more about their vision for solidifying The Times’ brand over several different platforms, and how photography has played a major role in their success.”
Mainland: “Social media platforms are like different countries with different languages and different customs. Certainly there are many aspects of them that overlap, but I think the key to being successful on a social platform is having a keen understanding of what makes each unique community tick.”
(Published April 23, 2012.) 
"Reuters journalists Anthony De Rosa and Lauren Young gave their own set of best practices for navigating the stream in a recent webinar [link]. They shared tips for using social media as reporting tools, conversation starters, audience builders and more. IJNet tuned in and found these takeaways ..." 
"Having spent part of my previous newspaper career trying to moderate comments that ran to the tens of thousands every day — from readers who wanted to make points on stories about everything from the Middle East to homosexuality — I am intimately familiar with how bad comments can get. But I also believe that having them is important. And I think Johnson and others are missing the point when they dismiss them as worthless.
"In fact, my argument is the exact same one that MG Siegler dismisses so quickly: I think comments are the equivalent of free speech, and that they serve a similar purpose — to keep those in power honest, and to enhance our online lives in much the same way that democracy does offline."
(Published April 10, 2012.) I agree with this well-reasoned column, written by Mathew Ingram. 
"Mobile location sharing is still relatively nascent. Data shows that usage of location-based social apps on mobile devices grows only incrementally year over year, despite the hype surrounding mobile apps like Foursquare, and the fact that many other apps are introducing layers of location-based 'Look at where I am!' features.
"And, of course, more recently we’ve seen the downside of those location-based services, with the much maligned Girls Around Me app, which triangulated data from Foursquare and Facebook to let creepers know where females were congregating."
(Published April 9, 2012.) 
"Lists" are a new feature on Facebook. These possible uses are explained: (1) List Your Staff; (2) Cover a Specific Beat; (3) Compile a List of Experts; (4) Engage with Your Readers; (5) Track What Your Competitors Are Doing.
(Published March 2012.) |
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