Emily Patton 101

What are you doing?

This question is one you hear nearly everyday. When you answer the phone. When you pass a friend in the hallway.  When you check your text messages. When you log onto Twitter or Facebook. One question. One simple question.  This one question has turned into a journalist’s dream (or reality).

Social networking sites, like Twitter, are opening doors to the “new journalism” wave like never before. (104 characters)

How?

Well let’s take a look around the world via Twitter (what a wonderful world):

jordinn somebody has been using my credit card information to stay in hotel rooms in Europe. lovely.

rubeedoo Finished making homemade pizza for dinner. You would have thought I handed the hubby a million bucks.

kevbow7 thinks his GPA is going to be a negative number this semester. Anyone up for selling grass skirts and coconut milk in Bermuda for a living?

kairarouda Watching Peyton Manning play golf at Scioto Country Club. Signed autograph for my son! He’s wearing a bright orange shirt, big smile.

These “tweets” are from real-life people describing what is happening in their worlds or in their minds in 140 characters or less. Imagine a headline news source at your fingertips whether you are a journalist or an ordinary person curious about a world other than your own. Social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn link people to the world around them, and has become a tool for journalists unlike any other.

Using Twitter, the response is fast. Most people tweet information as soon as it happens, before placing it on a blog, or texting a friend about the same information. Pemily has done this on many occasions. This winter she drove her car on an icy road and tweeted the fact she was in a ditch before calling for assistance (Notice the third person and under 140 characters). Stupid, maybe? Or keeping my faithful followers updated?

From “How We Use Twitter for Journalism” written by Marshall Kirkpatrick

Whether it’s natural disasters, political developments or breaking tech news – it’s common to discover items of interest first on Twitter.

Robert Scoble wrote a year ago about how Twitter users reported a major earthquake in Mexico City several minutes before the USGS did. Zolie Erdos chronicled last month how Twitter users beat government agencies and the world’s (formerly) leading news organizations in reporting on March earthquakes in both China and Japan.

We discover tech news tips on Twitter first on a regular basis. When Google bought Twitter competitor Jaiku, for example, we learned about it on Twitter. That early news tip lead to our covering the news before any one else and getting our story on the front page of Digg – good in this case for tens of thousands of pageviews.

To access this article, click here.

Minutes and seconds are so crucial in today’s journalism. If Twitter is a way to beat those competitors, it will be utilized, and obviously already is. Just take a look at the “Trending Topics” on Twitter, the headlines of tomorrow are right there.  Yep, a journalist’s dream realized.  (Thank you Twitter for this beautiful creation.) These social networking sites have connected a journalist to their future story in a flawless fashion. Journalists can “follow” their tweeters in a non-creepy non-stalkerish way and assemble a story that produces thousands of hits with the facile idea influence of a five second tweet by an ordinary everyday person or the inner workings of the most famous celebrities.

Tweeting helps spread the word to your followers what you are trying to do, whether its featuring a new blog post, directing viewers to an online broadcast, or advertising a live event your friends should check out. Forget the days of being the one who is the last to know the information. This information can be sent directly to all of your friends’ cellphones, with a text message of the new status and updates the website, automatically.

Newspapers are learning to master Twitter and Facebook as well. Want the latest news story? When its tweeted, you have it. Journalists are also using a “Tweet this” function on their blogs so with one click, their followers are now linked to their latest post. Readership becomes a daily habit, not a daily chore.

Sites like LinkedIn keep you updated with what is going on within your business company, other companies like that one, and the industry itself your company belongs to with news articles and contacts in your own personal posse.

As journalists begin investigating the powers of social networking, new journalism continues to make its way into our lives.

And this new journalism, well its connecting people by presenting news to both journalists and readers. Both journalists and readers connected better than ever. And that, my friend, is just a beautiful thing. (139 characters)

From “In Your Facebook: Why more and more journalists are signing up for the popular social networking site” by Kelly Wilson

Across the board, social sites are a way for people to interact as they never could before (or at least, never could with such ease). For journalists that means contacting others for ideas and support on tough assignments or connecting with editors for advice and job opportunities. As in any form of journalism, if you don’t understand where the audience is and what it’s doing, you don’t understand the audience.  To access this article, please click here.

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