Andy Carvin of NPR is a Twitter rock star. His social media reporting during the Arab Spring has made @acarvin a go-to source for information about uprisings from Tunisia to Yemen. He describes his role as that of a "Twitter anchor," vetting sources, verifying information and …
You already know that prospective employers are looking for journalists with social media skills. The Statesman-Journal in Salem, Oregon, certainly is. Executive Editor Bill Church recently advertised an opening for a "talented reporter with high digital IQ." If you’re talented, aggressive, responsible, innovative, socially adept, digitally …
When an earthquake hits, as happened on the East Coast this week, or when a major storm comes ashore as appears likely with Hurricane Irene this weekend, YouTube can be an invaluable source of video. Since just about everyone these days has a camera on …
Twitter got a ton of free publicity this week by releasing #TfN, a newsroom guide for Twitter. "We want to make our tools easier to use so you can focus on your job," the guide says, "finding sources, verifying facts, publishing stories, promoting your work …
Many journalists already use their smartphones as news gathering and publishing tools, but Mark Briggs of KING5.com in Seattle and the blog Journalism 2.0 says mobile devices can do so much more. "Few reporters use smartphones as a research device," Briggs says--a missed opportunity, in his …
Want more proof that social media are great reporting tools? Look no farther than "Keys to the Castle" an investigative story Jace Larson reported for KUSA in Denver that picked up a 2011 duPont-Columbia Award. The story uncovered a housing scam that victimized people facing …
If you sometimes think you're drowning in Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and the rest, you are not alone. I'm feeling slightly more overwhelmed than usual, myself, after listening to a webinar that was all about helping journalists get control of their social media streams. Maybe that's …
Forgive me for tooting my own horn, but I'm pleased to announce the publication of the second edition of my book, Advancing the Story: Broadcast Journalism in a Multimedia World, co-authored with Deb Wenger. It's available now from CQ Press or Amazon, and we hope you'll …
Keeping an eye on Twitter is pretty much mandatory in most newsrooms--or at least it should be. Yes, there's a lot of worthless chatter out there, but every so often you can find a pony. Take the story Kara Matuszewski, a Web producer at WBZ in Boston, …
There's no shortage of video online these days; in fact, it's become almost ubiquitous. But if everyone's bought in to the importance of posting video, not everyone has figured out how to get people to actually watch it. There's no single "holy grail," of course, but …
With so many newsrooms and individual journalists embracing Twitter, Facebook and the like, it's worth taking note of what other big organizations have learned about how to handle social media. I ran across these tips from Scott Roen, a vice president at American Express, in …
One thing you have to love about people in TV news is their ability to make fun of themselves. Now that Twitter, Facebook and lots of other social media have become fixtures in so many newsrooms, it was only a matter of time before somebody …
