Archive for the ‘technology’ Category
Q&A regarding Twittering experiences
Rachael Oehring, a DTH writer for Diversions, asked me to respond to some questions about Twittering for a story she’s writing for a features class. I’ve already posted about my experience Tweeting this weekend during the presidential debate and at an Obama/Biden rally, but I thought I’d include my responses here:
Q: You live-tweeted the Obama rally the other day, and I was just wondering how you got the idea for that? Were there other people in the press area doing the same thing? How was the experience of being at the rally in the first place, and what was it like sitting there texting while Obama was speaking?
A: I decided before the rally that I wanted to live-Tweet it. Until this weekend, I’ve chiefly used Twitter socially vs. journalistically. I wanted to try live-Tweeting an event to see what would work and what wouldn’t. I live-Tweeted the presidential debate with the DTH’s State & National editor, Ariel Zirulnick, on Friday, and learned a lot from that. Our Tweets were too much of a minute-by-minute run down of what was happening, which, with so many people watching the debate, wasn’t needed. In retrospect, we both wished we had included more analysis. I think that my Twittering from the Obama/Biden rally was a good mix of “This is what he said” and crowd reaction. I wish I had brought my laptop, because text-Twittering limited my speed.
I didn’t see anyone else in the press texting, and I kind of felt weird being the only one. Some in the press had laptops and they could have been Twittering, but I didn’t see one way or another. I haven’t seen the result of anyone in the press twittering the rally.
Q: How do you think a technology like Twitter fits in with traditional news outlets? This might be a bit of a stretch, especially since the DTH is pretty open to new technology, but how do you think other papers will utilize this technology? Do you think we’ll reach a point where there will be a bevy of press twittering updates at press conferences and events and such?
A: I would love to see traditional news outlets embrace Twitter more. There’s a balance to strike, because by and large the public hasn’t embraced Twitter, so the audience this form of reporting is directed at is small, but as a story telling form I like it. It’s bite-sized information that I can choose whether to receive or not. Many of the newspapers that have embraced it seem to have embraced it as another way to distribute news as an RSS alternative, but I think robot-Twitter accounts have their limitations. What I enjoy about Twitter is connecting with the other users. At its core, Twitter is simply social networking, and when newspaper’s don’t have that interactive element between their Twitter and their readers, I think readers are more likely to lose interest. I would love to see the press Twitter updates at meetings etc. Its another way of reporting, and then journalists can go back to those “notes” to write the story, which ideally is more nuanced and analytical than Tweet updates.
Q: How does tweeting an event differ from, say, live-blogging an event? Is there a difference?
A: I’ve never live-blogged an event, but I feel the principals of it vs. Twittering are similar. You’re trying to do updates as quickly as possible and as thorough as possible as the time allows for. Twitter imposes an additional space restriction because you only have 140 characters. You’re required to focus in on the key points.
Q: Do you think that something like Twitter is going to alter in any way how news is broken, does it fit in with the 24-hour news cycle of TV news networks and Web sites?
A: I think Twitter’s already altered how news is broken. The earthquake this summer was broken on Twitter before the Los Angeles Times had anything. And it’s not just Twitter that’s changing how news is broken – Wikipedia had Tim Russert’s entry updated to include his death before any news organization released the news. Social media in general makes it a lot easier for non-journalists to break news (and for journalists to break news). Twittering doesn’t give the full scope though – it’s great at announcing the news but hard to fit context into the space allowed. One of my favorite Tweets is this one by @lonelysandwich: “To be fair, if CNN could get away with HOLLYF**K EARTHQAKE!!!1! as the extent of its coverage, they’d likely have scooped your a**, Twitter.” (** mine).
Experiences live-Tweeting the debate and an N.C. Obama rally
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and running mate Joe Biden spoke at the depot Saturday. Both men emphasized the economy. “We can’t have another four years like the last eight years,” Obama said.
From the press risers overlooking the crowd of nearly 20,000, I was struck by the number of supporters taking cell phone pictures and videos of the speech. Search on Flickr for Obama and Greensboro, and a fair amount of photos from Saturday’s rally are posted. These amateur photos add to the wealth of content from the traveling press corps and the in-state crowd that showed up to cover the event. Greensboro’s News & Record has a really nice slideshow of photos from the rally (and audio and text of the speech), but there’s no interactive feature to let reader’s submit content. It only goes one way.
The event was also another try at live-Twittering an event. I liveblogged the first presidential debate with DTH State & National Editor Ariel Zirulnick on Friday, but Saturday I Twittered for myself and not the DTH. I didn’t have my computer with me, so my updates were text only, which limited my speed. And I don’t get Tweets sent to my phone, so I wasn’t able to see or respond to all the @ replies I received until I got back to the office. That made it very much a one-way street.
I think my strategy – Tweeting mostly one-liner quotes with a few describing the atmosphere – worked better for this style of event than for the debate the night before, when all of America was watching and didn’t need the blow-by-blow account of what they watching. In that case, more analysis would have been appropriate.
The DTH plans to liveblog other election events this semester via Twitter, and I’m looking to experiment with different Tweeting styles to see what works best. What do you think? What do you want from live Twittering from an event?
The Salisbury Post is all a-Twittered
My internship at The Salisbury Post ended last Wednesday. I came courtesy of the Peggy Allen community journalism scholarship through the J-school at UNC, and I had a wonderful summer working at the Post. I couldn’t have hoped for more. My time there made me further appreciative of the type of journalism community papers provide.
The newsroom wanted to hear from me about the future of journalism and what I learned at the editors conference I went to at UGA in July, so we brown-bagged it and talked shop during lunch.
I don’t think anything I talked about was particularly revolutionary. I talked about tools journalists are using to help them with their work – RSS readers, Twitter, social networking sites, SproutBuilder, Dipity and a few others. I talked about my goal for the DTH – buying multimedia kits with audio recorders, microphones and Flip video cameras for reporters to use.
I couldn’t have been happier with how the conversation went. It was the perfect example of how newsrooms can utilize those with different skill-sets to teach others within the newsroom. As an intern, the reporting and writing skills I learned from watching and working with these journalists couldn’t have been beaten. And they can learn from the technological skills I have as a 20-year-old.
All around the table were journalists who recognize the industry is changing and who want to learn the online skills now needed. There were no curmudgeons at this table.
After lunch, the Post’s online coordinator, Brad Thomas, and I helped nearly everyone in the newsroom set up a Twitter account. I helped Managing Editor Frank DeLoache set up his Google Reader with RSS feeds. Sports editor Ronnie Gallagher set up a Facebook account.
The atmosphere in the newsroom was electric. Everyone (@frankdeloache, @kathychaffin, @RonnieGallagher, @gayparee and @DeirdreBPS) spent the rest of the afternoon updating Twitter and learning how to use it. I tried to answer questions best I could, and I promised I would type up a glossary of Internet terms and programs they can use. Brad even created a Twitter account for the paper itself.
It’s only been a few days, but they’re still using their accounts. They’ve even gotten other Post staff to set up accounts. I’m really excited to see as they realize what I realized earlier – how helpful Twitter can be, and the sense of community it creates.
And it’ll help us keep in touch now that I’m back in Chapel Hill, where I’ll spend this year as managing editor for print at The Daily Tar Heel. I’m looking forward to the year and watching the paper grow under Editor Alli Nichols.
Tour of UGA’s The Red and Black
The last part of our day included a tour of UGA’s independent student paper, The Red and Black. I have a friend who used to be on the R&B and it’s one of the college papers I follow the most, because of the similarities between UNC, UGA and our two papers, but I’d never seen the office.
They own their own building, which is great, but of course presents its own challenges (taking care of maintenance work on your own, for example). It’s a pretty two story building that’s slightly off-campus at the top of a lovely hill. Their ad staff works on the first floor, and editorial staff is on the second floor. You can see the newsroom here.
What amazed me is how clean it was. At the DTH we have Halloween/Christmas/Valentine’s decorations from 2+ years ago that have never been taken down. This in addition to piles of papers (often trash) and general junk. Also, our well loved couch that has had oh so many sleep on it. Even just the individual decorations desks put up, whether it’s cutting out good articles and hanging them, or pictures of staff or whatever. The DTH feels very lived in, and there’s no mistaking it for a college newsroom. Still, I’m sure The Red and Black, when it isn’t the middle of the summer (when even the DTH looks lonely), is a much, much livelier place (is it even possible for a college newspaper to not be?).
The sad news of this endeavor was the disappointing news about College Publisher 5 from Ed Morales, the Red and Black’s editorial adviser. College Publisher 5 has basically been promised to us (and all the other college newspapers who host with them) as a sort of Web Jesus. It’ll post stuff for you! You can click and drag! It’s so flexible! It’s amazing.
Apparently not (No surprise – they also said we’d be switched over this summer … which is now this scheduled for the fall … which surely will be pushed back even later before it’s all over). But everyone was so excited about CP5 because really, there is a lot of room for improvement. From what he said, their experience testing it out, they found that it took almost 4 times as long to post because all of the automation has disappeared. The automatic posting apparently isn’t there yet.
Only one paper in the country, as I understand, is on CP5 now fully, and I’d really be interested in hearing their experiences. Most of the papers here are on CP, and as Morales pointed out, that’s really because there is no other good option now for college papers. Juliette Mullin, the Daily Pennsylvanian managing editor and I talked about this, and we’re both frustrated, but also don’t see switching away from CP as an option. The DP has talked about switching to Drupal, but her concern is continuity, and finding staff year to year that can maintain a site on their own without the system in place with CP. And as Andrew learned, learning Drupal isn’t easy either. The Savannah Morning News Editor, Susan Catron (a DTH alum!), said their paper has been hosting on Drupal and is very happy with it, but again, I don’t see our staff now having the skills to build and maintain our own site. And hosting on WordPress, as some papers do with great success, isn’t practical for a paper like us in the event we get huge traffic one day (Taheri-azar, Eve Carson, etc).
So for anyone who’s working with it now, how’s CP5? Is it as bad/good as we’ve heard? Can it walk on water, or does it sink?
Make sure readers can share what they read
I still read The Pilot, where I interned last summer, online occasionally. Last week I saw this moving story about an Army medic who died after abusing computer cleaning aerosols. The continuing coverage, by the Pilot and by the various outlets that have picked up the story highlighting post traumatic stress disorder, is hopefully drawing attention to the private hell Dwyer (and other soldiers) face upon their return from Iraq.
I wanted to tag The Pilot’s stories on my del.icio.us account. But has only these options: a printer-friendly view and e-mail a friend or the editor. I have a soft spot for the local paper, sure. I can (and have tagged) stories and columns about Dwyer by other newspapers.
But the Pilot’s missing out on the fun part of the Internet – allowing readers to bookmark and share what’s important to them. Simply letting readers e-mail a story isn’t enough anymore.
What about Digg, or Facebook, Mixx and Yahoo Buzz, options The New York Times lets readers share stories with? The (Raleigh) News & Observer, whose column by Barry Saunders about Dwyer was one that I tagged, has 34 options that include Digg, MySpace, Reddit, Furl, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Google and Facebook for readers to bookmark and share stories.
Giving readers options isn’t a nicety anymore, it’s a necessity. Online newspapers that ignore this are missing out on ways to draw people to their Web site and increase their readership.
Networking and other new things
I’ve spent most of today fixing up this blog and adding new things. I joined LinkedIn and del.icio.us, and re-examined my Twitter account. Social networking, beyond Facebook, is new and while I get its importance, it isn’t something that is thrillingly exciting. I’m trying to get the hang of things, so bear with me.
