Today the Columbia Journalism Review has posed the question, How should journalists use Twitter? The question comes out of yet another emergency of global significance where the news spread rapidly on Twitter – this time the Mumbai terror attacks
Go to CJR to read their brief introduction to what is more of a newsroom discussion being conducted in the comments. There are some good points made.
This is my initial reaction…
Online news has been in various places (including the recent MEAA Future of Journalism report) described as more “event-driven”, with a lack of analysis that has formerly balanced out the print edition. I disagree that all news has been balanced in that way.
“a reporter showed up from an outlet thatshall remain nameless asking about an incident that happened 20 minutes earlier and four blocks away. …Local MSM: either figure itout or die trying.”
The nightly broadcast TV news has always been event-driven, as has the hourly bulletin radio news. Deeper analysis has been left to long-form programs with a focus on investigation. With that in mind I say that yes, like other forms of news, Twitter is event-driven. It conveys the immediacy of what is happening in the form of live text updates but it is just that, one form, one medium of choice to convey information. It is a form that is useful in lieu of other forms that may be preferable, like live vision (via TV or web streaming), or at length descriptions of events that have unfolded so far, and explanations of the circumstances surrounding an event.
In the comments at CJR, many people are worried about the face value with which Twitter updates might influence a reporter’s understanding of an event, while others rightly say it should be treated much the same as a member of the public calling something in – it needs to be able to be verified. Just like local contacts, however, a journalist can also be building up trusted social networking contacts, whose news tips or inside word a journalist might be willing to accept at face value.
Journalists have never underestimated the value of sources, and social networking sources should be treated the same. Digital media may have created a different world to one most journalists are familiar with, but some things remain the same – journalists have contacts they regularly communicate with, with whom they build relationships. There may be casual contacts who only occasionally pass on an interesting bit of news, and then others with more clout who are an immense help to getting an inside story. With a vast array of experts and contacts available online, particularly through social networks, Twitter is just one of those essential tools.
But I digress.
Journalists should use Twitter:
- to find contacts
- to maintain and communicate with contacts and their audience
- to monitor keywords relevant to their round (their beat, for my American friends)
- to monitor updates around a specific geographic location.
A journalist might want to monitor Twitter updates by location to be aware of anything significant mentioned in their local area (like an emergency), or because a significant event will be taking place in a specific location, like the Republican National Convention.
I mention that because one of the best things I read recently about the possible use of Twitter as an “event-driven” source was its use at the RNC, and how mainstream media was left far behind.
In a Poynter post a few months ago, Twitter: Surprise Star of RNC Coverage, two quotes stood out.
Albert Maruggi observed: “[Twitter is] the police scanner of 21st century newsroom. This from a guy that used to rewrite AP copy for 11pm newscast.”
Currently assigned to the enviable police desk reporting round, I enjoyed this analogy. Like a scanner, Twitter is a non-stop flow of information; if your ear isn’t attuned, or you’re not listening to the right frequency, you could easily miss a big story in all the static.
The second quote in the Poynter piece on Twitter was from “One local resident, Minneapolis Michael,” who said on Tumblr, in a post titled, How Twitter changed my RNC experience:
“…Every local media outlet needs to do what the Pioneer Press is doing. By using their Twitter account as a place to post links to stories and place them in context, it gives me a credible local source AND they are looked upon favorably by the Twitterverse.
[...snip...]
I will leave you with one anecdotal piece of evidence: As I was at a street corner downtown Saint Paul checking my feed to see where the next hotspot was, a reporter showed up from an outlet thatshall remain nameless asking about an incident that happened 20 minutes earlier and four blocks away. …Local MSM: either figure itout or die trying.”
In future posts I plan to expand on some of the ways I use social networking – particularly Twitter – as a journalist, and some of the tools that help in that use.
What I worry about is when an over-enthusiastic marketer, or just someone out to wreak havoc, executes a coordinated “Twitter attack” designed to play the mainstream media for a fool. How long till we see the first fake emergency or breaking news scam go worldwide in a matter of minutes through Twitter?
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Tags: blogging, cjr, columbia journalism review, contacts, mumbai, networking, poynter, rnc, Social Networking, sources, tools, twitter
I’ve been using a URL shortening service on my site called uTag since it was launched a few weeks ago.
UPDATE: I have removed the uTag script that automatically changed my URLs. And for brevity, the technical issues with uTag that I address in this post are:
- If the ad banner is left open after visiting a site, the user continues surfing to other websites, and later closes the ad banner, the browser will automatically refresh to the page first visited by following the uTag link.
- In the same vein, once the ad banner is closed, using the Back button will simply reload the banner frame, rather than going back to the linking site.
- A uTag Death Loop exists, whereby a uTag link to another uTag enabled site will result in an increasing number of ad banners stacked on top of each other. Read below for how this happens.
Put simply, uTag is a monetisation strategy for linking. Several sites already provide link shortening services which have become popular chiefly amongst Twitter users, who need a short link because their posts have a 140 character limit. Examples are bit.ly, is.gd, tinyurl.com, to name just a few. The difference with uT.ag is that it aims to pay people for providing those outbound links.
The utag link will provide an ad banner on the target page and, at the end of a payment period, a share of revenue is deposited into a pre-nominated paypal account. The ad banner sits below the normal page content and can be closed if a user considers it too intrusive, but will the banner become more of an annoyance for people than the revenue is worth? Also, if users hate the banner so much they stop trusting or using your links, then you have a serious problem.
So it’s great in theory – a revolution of the link economy. Whereas people linking out to quality content were in the past building a reputation as a trusted resource, the idea is that now you can still do that, but at the same time actually be paid! But there are still some bugs to be worked out that may turn people off, and away from your content.
The uTag blog has listed a few external reviews of their service, while
Pantsland’s Brad Kellet has aggregated a few responses from his Twitter crowd after he asked for their thoughts on the banner ads.
I’ve implemented the code on my site and, as you’ll see, it rewires every outbound link to a uTag link (UPDATE: no longer). I see three main issues with the service. As Hugo Sharp, one of the uTag developers, responded to these bug questions on Twitter (@hugosharp), I present the exchange here.
The uTag death loop I referred to is a possible scenario in which a uTag link to another uTag enabled site will result in an increasing number of ad banners stacked up on each other.
Read the following Tweets in reverse order to see how this outcome, a double ad banner, happened.
So a brief experiment confirmed the existence of a uTag Death Loop, or as @hugosharp described it, a potential black hole.
As my last (top) update mentioned, the experiment was unsuccessful in that I couldn’t loop back to my site from Twitter, because Twitter outbound links open in a new tab or window. However if I linked to a uTag enabled site, which in turn linked back to my uTag enabled site, a loop of following those two links could theoretically result in a never ending stack of uTag ad banners.
If a high traffic site was using uTag links they might expect to lose a proportion of visitors who get sick of the intrusiveness, and apparent unpredictability, of the ads. As I mentioned at the beginning, some visitors may stop trusting your links, or using them at all, because of the banner they know they’ll get.
While you shouldn’t disregard the unhappiness of a proportion of visitors, some people may offset that with the possibility of revenue that the uTag link provides.
Mine is not a high traffic site, so with little to no return on the uTag banner ad revenue the uTag links may have to go.
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