Social Media Journalism: Tools and Tips for Unique News Coverage

Posted: May 12th, 2010 | Author: scott | Filed under: World | Tags: social media, social media journalism | No Comments »

Journalism in the Age of Social Media

If you haven’t noticed, social media has become an integral part of news reporting. By integral, I mean they can’t stop talking about it. But as of now, social media is far from being fully utilized in journalism. For the past year I’ve worked for an online news company, I was surprised to see much of the great content from YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook had gone unnoticed by mainstream media.

I can’t remember how many times we poked fun of a particular news anchor from a major news network for his Twitter reporting style. All he did was pointing the camera at his screen and start reading other people’s Tweets. If you watch “How I Met Your Mother”, think Sandy Rivers. The resemblance is uncanny.

Theoretically, technology has made it possible for anyone to become a journalist. Anyone can write a news article and publish it online, and if he’s close to the scene, he might even have exclusive photos or videos that mainstream networks don’t. But in reality few of us would be interested in writing a news story. Instead, we would much rather share photos and footage, because the process is simple and relatively effortless.

Using Social Media for Photos and Videos

Aren’t you tired of the same photos from AP or Getty Images? If you have access to them, everyone else does. Sometimes you can find surprisingly good footage shot by witness at the scene.

Note that the user might not have knowledge of what’s happening there. Choose broad search terms to avoid filtering out quality content. For example, for a school lock down incident, you can search for the school name, neighborhood, street names, or simply the word lock down (or “lockdown” and other variations). I’ve had success finding out what happened in a school lock down incident through the Tweets of students in the building.

If you are searching for footage from a foreign country, try searching in their language. Chances are these are the same footage the big guys will be using.

Social Media Platforms

Twitter is usually the fastest for first-hand reports and photos. It can take up to hours before footage show up on YouTube, because users may need to find a computer to upload their video. Photos on Flickr may take the longest to show up, because users need to transfer photos from their cameras to a computer before they can upload.

Twitter

For breaking news, Twitter is your best bet for first-hand reports and photos. Many Twitter users own iPhone, Blackberry, or other types smart phones that enables them to send reports and photos at the scene.

An effective way of finding photos on Twitter is through PicFog. Technically the photos are hosted by different service providers, but PicFog pools them together for easy browsing. Twitter users can upload videos using services such as Twitvid, but as of now they are uncommon.

Sometimes you can find photos of celebrities through their family and friends. Try searching for their first names because friends rarely refer to each other by their last or full names.

YouTube

When searching for YouTube videos, use broad search terms as well, and sort videos by uploaded dates. Be cautious not to pick copyrighted videos for your coverage. Some news agencies do upload their video footage to their official YouTube channel, and in this case, you are free to use them.

Flickr

Similar to YouTube, a good idea is to sort photos by uploaded date and search by location. Flickr is an excellent source for high quality photos. Since most Flickr users are amateur photographers, if you ask nicely they may grant you the permission to publish their photos for little or no fees.

Facebook

A Facebook fan page search may turn up interesting discussions worthy of reporting. Many celebrities, organizations, and businesses have set up Facebook fan pages. It’s usually the place where you can find the people who are affected by or feel strongly about the incident.

---