So the following article gives me mixed feelings: Does this mean my degree is useless, given that my education in journalism is pre-social media and now completely dated, or am I on the launching pad for an amazing career in a newly developed communications world? Thank goodness I’m an early adopter when it comes to social media! I’ve been an avid Facebooker since 2004 🙂
Social media reshapes journalism
Expanding two-way information flow between news outlets and the public yields big benefits for both
By Robert Quigley AMERICAN-STATESMAN SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR
Social media have gone mainstream, but what does that really mean? Sure, you can share pictures from a party quicker, and with more people than ever before (including long-forgotten high school classmates). You can also see what Lance Armstrong is up to at any given moment or share your opinion of a new restaurant.
What is going under the radar a little is the effect social media have had on journalism.
The dramatic technological changes that played a part in the news industry’s well-documented problems have also opened opportunities for journalists to connect with the public on an unprecedented level. We still report facts and give you the news, but the rise of social media has changed how a story is told and consumed. For example, most of the Statesman’s newsroom staff members use social media every day to interact with readers and sources. Thanks to these new tools, journalists can get instant feedback on their work, gather meaningful tips, track trends – and build valuable relationships with the public.
Online, the public wants, and expects, to be able to have a conversation with just about anyone at anytime. People don’t want to just read what Kirk Bohls thinks about the Longhorns, they want to fire their opinions back – even in the middle of a football game – and be heard. Thanks to these new tools, everyone can be in the press box: If you follow Kirk Bohls at twitter.com/kbohls, you can chat with him during games.
Before social media, interacting with readers was limited to including reporters’ phone numbers and e-mail addresses at the end of stories. Responding to people encourages good dialogue, and it is likely to make people more loyal to our product.
With story and blog comments, Twitter and Facebook, that responsiveness comes much more naturally, and more quickly. Readers can now react and be heard in real time during news events, and the benefits go both ways. As the Statesman’s social media editor, I often get notes, through Twitter, Facebook and e-mail, from people who express gratitude that we’re listening and responding to their concerns and comments.
In this new world, listening to the public is as important as telling the story. In February, when Andrew Joseph Stack III flew a single-engine plane into an Austin office building, social media played a big role in helping us give a more complete picture of the events.
In the newsroom, we first heard about the incident on Twitter. We marshaled our resources right away to cover what was clearly going to be a big story. As our staff members worked the phones and drove to the scene, I headed to Twitter. I asked the 20,000-plus followers of our main Statesman account whether they had seen anything, and I asked witnesses to call our reporter Tony Plohetski. Several people called Tony, and their accounts made it into the online and print versions of our stories. I also asked for photos, and they came pouring in. Twitter users, armed with camera-equipped mobile phones, were there. They responded by sending me dozens of photos from the scene. We were posting these user photos on our site as fast as I could get them.
A few hours after the plane hit the building, I received a private message from one of our Twitter followers that tipped the Statesman to Stack’s online manifesto. Thanks to that tip, we were among the first media organizations, if not the first, to host the manifesto online.
Later that day, reporter Steven Kreytak requested that I ask the Statesman’s Twitter followers for the source code to the manifesto. The next morning, Steven told me he received dozens of responses, and he was blown away by how eager, polite and helpful they were. He told me he thanked them for the info, and they were “thanking me for thanking them.” People out there appreciate what we do, and they like that we’re coming to them through social media.
As more of the online crowd has taken to social media, fewer are producing original content – specifically, blogs. Meanwhile, some of the content that’s still being produced, including by professional journalists, is gaining wider circulation via Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. This is a good thing for those of us in the news business. People are more likely than ever to share our work with their online circle of friends and family, giving us an expanded audience.
Early on, the Statesman saw the benefits of social media and pushed aggressively into the new field. The paper now has more than 90 newsroom Twitter accounts and a combined total of more than 115,000 followers. Thousands of them come each day from Twitter to read our content, and many were not Statesman readers before finding us through social media.
The Statesman has been recognized as a news industry leader in use of social media, but it’s hardly alone. If you watch the cable news networks, Twitter and Facebook are mentioned almost as often as the networks’ slogans. CNN’s Rick Sanchez, who has more than 125,000 Twitter followers, tells readers on the air to ask him questions through Twitter, which he reads and responds to on the air. Most major newspapers have Facebook fan pages and multiple Twitter accounts, as do Austin’s TV and radio stations. Austin-based morning radio personality Bobby Bones has nearly as many followers on Twitter as the Statesman’s main account.
Critics dismiss the social media realm by saying it’s a place where rumors run rampant and ethics are ignored. Some suggest that social media replace the need for professional journalists. My response is that journalists are even more valuable, exactly because of what we do. When rumors are running wild, journalists can verify what’s really going on and report it through social media channels. The code of ethics that journalists live by translates into the social media world. Whether content is being published in print, on our new Web site or on Facebook, journalists are expected to be ethical, fair and accurate.
Last summer, when I took the newly created position of social media editor, I heard a lot of people say, “That’s my dream job – to just play on Twitter and Facebook all day.” It is a great job, not because I’m playing, but because I’m engaged with this community every day. It is a great time to be a journalist.
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