New Campaign Coverage

Presidential campaign coverage may look a little different here in 2011 and into 2012 than it has in previous elections. An article on Mashable reports that more Republican candidates are reaching out through media outlets, specifically social media, instead of appearing in public town halls and other campaigns.

The Des Moines Register shows that the appearances in Iowa by GOP candidates is low and that is affecting how local journalists can stay on top of coverage. Iowa, being the first state to caucus, is usually heavily targeted by candidates because of the implications that Iowa's vote has on the rest of the caucuses and primaries.

Kathie Obradovich, the Register's political columnist, says "It's hard to find candidates interacting with voters in a real natural way." She has been covering presidential campaigns for 15 years, and says that campaign tactics have recently changed from town hall gatherings to Twitter.

Journalists have to react to this change and take advantage of the immediacy that Twitter and other social media sites provide. Additionally, Twitter forums allow for participation and questions from readers. Obradovich, for example, has begun live tweeting campaign events.

With the changing platforms for news outlets, journalists need to make sure that they react quickly and use these platforms to their upmost potential.

article via: http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/in_iowa_covering_a_new_breed_o.php

photo courtesy of Creative Commons

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The New Town Hall



Michele Bachmann speaking to voters in Indianola, Iowa this past summer.

Social media has set a very different tone in the world, impacting numerous things- one of them being presidential campaigns. The Columbia Journalism Review reports that journalists, especially Iowan journalists in the caucus state, are being challenged by less and less personal access to candidates and are dealing with campaigns releasing the same amount of information to everyone. In past years, candidates held town forums, where local journalists and townspeople could go and listen to their arguments and policies concerning the presidency. Now, with the popularity of Twitter, news and announcements are so instantaneous that candidates have apparently felt little need to build grassroots campaigns from the ground up in Iowa.

One tricky side effect sneaking up on journalists is the retweet. Such widespread campaigning with little variety from state to state leads to retweets of candidates, or even competitors. Other uses of Twitter include livetweeting candidate's speeches during the event.

Twitter has definitely made an impact in the political bubble. Journalists need to be much more aware if what they are covering is real news or not. Losing personal addresses from candidates to voters should not fade away because of what technology has brought, but should instead be enhanced by the new technology.

Photo credit/Kate Hayden

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MuckRack.com

"Thousands of journalists are using Twitter to research stories, break news, find sources, and keep tabs on their beat...Don't be left out of the conversation."

This is the tagline for the website muckrack.com, a site founded by Gregory Galant in 2009.

By developing this website, Galant hoped to answer the question, "What if you could get tomorrow's newspaper today?"

This website tracks thousand of professional journalists on Twitter and other social media sites and shows what news topics are trending.

This is a very useful tool for media professionals, particularly those in public relations.

The website filters and analyzes how journalists are covering the news in real-time and emails users when journalists tweet about relevant terms.

So for example on Dec. 3, the top topics most tweeted about by journalists were the death of news sportswriter Allen Wilson, the New York Times' interview with Sandusky, and Herman Cain.

For each topic, it gives a little paragraph description and than the tweets by journalists about the topic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-5HDZUrh54

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Scooping Where You Sleep

Twitter is the ultimate instant news source.

Reporters have the ability to tweet from anywhere with cell reception or Internet access, and most put this on-the-go capability to use every day.

An article from Poynter. reported that because journalists were tweeting and updating statuses about being arrested at Occupy Wall Street. While this use of social media is effective, some critics argue that the arrested journalists actually scooped their own newsrooms.

Although an official statement was released by the journalists' newsroom denying that the employees' tweets scooped employers, there is an idea that other news sources could become obsolete.

The biggest (actually, shortest) obstacle for Twitter's takeover of breaking news is 140 characters long. Limited to 140 characters, Twitter is heavy with headlines but short on content.

For a quick news fix, Twitter should be the go-to; however, other media, such as print and online newspapers, television, and radio, are better equipped for whole articles and in-depth pieces.

Photo by Creative Commons

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Twitter Engagement

Journalists and news organizations primarily use Twitter to broadcast links, and they rarely ask for audience input or retweet others.

A study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism focused on tweets by top newspapers, broadcasters, websites, and individual journalists.

The key finding is that news organizations use Twitter in limited ways. The main use being linking to their own material.

Ninety-three percent of tweets by news organizations link to their own articles while just two percent asked for audience input, and just one percent where retweets.

Individual journalists had about the same percentage of links and retweets.

Fox News had the most audience interaction on Twitter with 21 percent of tweets seeking feedback and 44 percent retweets.

Fox also increased its followers the most rapidly, maybe because of their Twitter interaction approach.

The New York Times had the least amount of audience interaction on Twitter.

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Social Media Information in Newspapers

The Monitor of McAllen, Texas, is now printing the Twitter usernames of its reporters by their articles so that readers can follow them on Twitter.

At the end of each story in the paper, it lists how to get a hold of the reporter by facebook, phone, and e-mail.

According to an article on Poynter.org, the goal of adding social media information to the articles is to get more readers to follow, friend or like the reporters on Facebook and Twitter.

Executive Editor Steve Fagan says he is "encouraging reporters to show a little more personality through the social networks than they do normally in print or even online reporting, to make our people a little more human."

Fagan wants his reporters to engage their followers and friends on Twitter and Facebook and by adding some more personality on these sites, they have a better chance of being liked and therefore being read in the newspaper.

Reporters are also allowed to show more opinion on the social media sites than in an article. By being more personable they are more likely to connect with their readers.

"I've been 40 years in the business," Fagan said. "We (newspaper journalists) have gone out of our way to be invisible people, keeping ourselves out of it. When you're doing social media, it's not really possible to keep yourself out of it."

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Google and Twitter to the Rescue!

After the allegations of Herman Cain's sexual harassment, people started to view Cain in a new light.

Theres one thing that can truly hurt a presidential candidate when he or she is in the process of running, and that thing is scandal.

It is then when people really start questioning, "Is this guy the guy we really want running our country?"


But good news is, Herman Cain has found a way to fight these allegations head on. By using social media and a popular search engine as his aid. Cain is using keyword Google and Twitter search ads, such as: "Cain Sharon Bialek", which leads to an option of Cain's website CainTruth, which was a paid attempt to bi pass the scandal. The campaign had also bought a promoted Tweet when anybody searched "Herman Cain" on Twitter.

I believe that Cain has made a pretty smart attempt on continuing his campaign and trying to get away from these allegations.

Works cited: www.poynter.org
www.creativecommons.org

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Timing Your Tweets For Success

It is a simple game plan when it comes to Twitter. The more people your tweets reach, the more established you can become as a credible source of news.

In this article on Mashable.com, Leonhard Widrich explains three apps that help you track the timing of your tweets.

The apps serve as a way to observe when tweeting would be most efficient for you.

The apps use a multitude of data in order to decide when your tweets would be most effective.

Everything from followers tweet times and density to number of retweets is tracked in order to determine optimal tweet times.

While there is no solid data that tweeting at certain times will help up your followers it certainly can't hurt anything.

The most important aspect of your tweets is their accuracy. But, if no one sees them are they really doing their job?

Sourcing for your tweets is another important part of tweeting. Variation is the key so people don't get bored with what you have to say.

In this case timing may not be everything but, it isn't something to be ignored.

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Spreading the Cause

Occupy Wall Street is a demonstration that has been going on in New York City now for a number of weeks. The movement has now grown in numbers in New York and has also been spreading across the nation. In an article by CBS it is said that the number one thing keeping this movement alive and spreading it across the nation is the use of social media.

A lot of planning for Occupy Wall Street happens on their Facebook group page, which has up to 150,000 members. Another social media tool that has been used for Occupy Wall Street is Meetup. Meetup is a network based on forming groups for organizations. According to the Boston Herald thanks to meet up Occupy Wall Street has organized over 1,019 cities.

Occupy Wall Street has also been all over Twitter using the hashtag #OccupyWallStreet. Along with Facebook, Twitter, and Meetup the movement has been using other social media sites. Youtube and Tumblr are becoming helpful sights as well showing photos and video of the Occupy Wall Street.

Social media has become one of the best ways to share information with other people across the globe. Thanks to social media Occupy Wall Street has expanded beyond New York and to the world.

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

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Google's Job in Improving Media

The journalism industry is shifting from old media to digital, which has been influenced by real-time social media tools like blogs and Twitter.

These websites allow anyone to be a publisher, leading to some news being unreliable. Legendary TV newsman Ted Koppel suggested at a recent Goggle event that it is Google's duty to fix this problem.

Koppel said that too much of what passes for news is trivial and sensationalistic. Media outlets spend too much time on what news people want instead of what news they need.

The idea is that Google will filter its news feed to focus on the most important news. Google has made steps to secure that their posts are from professional websites by using stories from longtime standing old media sources such as The New York Times.

Google News is the first source of news for many people every day. Since it is such a widely used website, they should feel some sense of responsibility to inform their audience of what is most important to their lives.

Stories about the Casey Anthony trial and Nancy Grace's nip slip are interesting but have no real impact on people's lives.

People need to be more informed of issues that will affect their present and future, such as the presidential race and foreign aid policies.

Photo Credit: Aaron Morrison

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Breaking News and Your Credibility

With the use of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media devices news travels at an astounding rate. Getting the story out in the newspaper the next day is considered a snails pace comparatively. With the race to beat the clock journalists have been facing the problem of releasing misinformation.

For example, in late July a journalists tweet was released stating Pierce Morgan had been suspended by CNN.

Clearly this was false, but the false information was published because the journalist didn't act responsibly and wanted to get the breaking story out.

This release of misinformation tarnished the image of this particular journalist. I bet that viewers will find it difficult to trust news from this source from now on.

In order to prevent these occurrences a website was founded called RegretTheError.com which focuses mainly on educating journalists to be responsible news sources. In addition to information on their website RegretTheError.com hosts conventions to inform journalists of how to avoid certain mistakes.

It's risky to be a minute to minute reporter. One can never be 100 percent sure if their information is true. Just because Joe the plumber spewed the information off doesn't necessarily make it credible.

Thats why it is important to make one extra phone call or email to fact check before releasing the news to the masses. To be a successful journalist when it comes to prompt reporting be responsible.

Being the first to Tweet the most interesting breaking news can be an exciting thrill, but make sure the facts are accurate. If not, all credibility could be lost.

Photo courtesy of Photo Bucket.

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Journalists denied access to Twitter page

Last February, Texas Governor Rick Perry made a few headlines in an effort to avoid them. Specifically, Perry was found to have blocked a number of Texan media members from accessing his Twitter account (you can read the original article here). DallasNews.com's Tom Benning reported being denied following access after trying to subscribe to @GovernorPerry. At least two other journalists, Bud Kennedy and Scott Braddock, were singled out by Perry and blocked.

Surprisingly, even after Perry was called out on his behavior, Poynter.org reported on Monday that Perry still blocks reporters from viewing his account. Why would this be news? Now that Perry is running for GOP nomination, journalists are even more curious to know why members of the press are not allowed to subscribe to his account.

But no worries, correspondents: nine minutes after Steve Myers reported on Poynter, Yahel Carmon created @PerryUnblocked by putting the RSS feed for @GovernorPerry into Yahoo Pipes, and flowing that in to Twitterfeed.

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How Twitter has Changed Campaign Coverage

More and more people are getting their news, including political news, from social media. This offers a quicker and more up to date way to see the latest news about political candidates. But does quicker mean better? Or are reporters these days just worried about the quantity and speed of their reports, and not the quality?


Jodi Edna said in his report, Campaign Coverage in the Time of Twitter, from the American Journalism Review."No longer do reporters slog elbow to elbow with presidential contenders vying for votes in Iowa and New Hampshire. No longer do they get to know the candidates in a way that voters do not – up close and personal, with their feet up, their guard down and, perhaps, a drink at the ready. No longer do they have the luxury of weeks or days or even hours to gather string and dig deep and analyze before they write a story."

Edna continues on say that many reporters today don't have enough time to write what reporters 10 years ago would consider a story since they are so busy with Twitter, blogging, or shooting a video clip.

Reporters these days are no longer following candidates around and getting to know them,"There are fewer people observing these candidates up close and more people writing about them from afar. There are a lot more people opining, blogging, tweeting, but not out there looking at candidates face to face," says Zeleny of the New York Times. Is this a good thing? Are we getting the best, most accurate stories from these reporters? Or is this just the fastest way to get out information?

The new way of reporting has both its positives and negatives. People are definitely getting their news faster and more often by using social media. Also they have the options of seeing pictures of the candidate, clicking on a link to view a video that the reporter shot with his/her phone, or hear an audio recording captured by the reporter. And nothing is better than hearing from the candidates themselves.

But the negatives are clear as well. Continuing in his report Edna says this referring to today's reporters, "Almost to a person, they bemoan the loss of time to engage in in-depth reporting, to go beyond the story of the day to unearth the insightful gems that really tell us something instructive, something fundamentally important, about the men and women who would be president." Reporters today are sacrificing their time to do deep research on candidates so that they can keep getting the latest, newer news.

Everyone is a potential journalist today. What is considered news today only remains news for a little while, until something new has to be blogged about. Is the new form of reporting on campaigns (little amounts of data but constantly updated) better for the voter than the old form of reporting, where we received in-depth stories about the candidate but not as often? Whatever way is better, campaigns are being covered more and more by people on sites like twitter, and less and less by reporters who do in-depth reporting.

Photo from creativecommons.org
http://youtu.be/PoScti4lii8

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Rage Against the Media

Photo courtesy of CreativeCommons.org

On September 17th, all was normal with Twitter. However, if you chose to glance down at trending topics, there were a couple of interesting choices:
#occupywallstreet
#sept17
#USdayofrage

If you were intrigued enough to click on one of these hashtags, the content might have surprised you. For it appeared our nation was in the middle of a giant, unexpected economic protest on Wall Street. The hacktivist group Anonymous used some of its many Twitter accounts to help organize the event, and stood among the crowd during peaceful demonstrations against 'coporate pigs' and the American government.

If you were watching the mainstream American news, you never would have heard any of it. As the day went on, Twitter users began complaining of a major media blackout against what they claimed civilians would deem to be news. And it seems to be true: the first major media company to release an article over the event was Al Jeezera English, a foreign media outlet (read the article here). In fact, while Al Jeezera released their article the same day as the popular revolution begun, it took American outlets at least a full day before they began to release any kind of coverage (see Business Week's coverage here). It was too long for the protesters, one of whom tweeted "This whole lack of news coverage thing for #occupywallstreet is kind of disturbing. Yet the asinine Glen Beck rally got all that press?"

Why did it take the American media so long to respond to a major protest on one of our country's most famous streets? For weeks, journalists have been covering foreign protests with a lot of effort and no small amount of dedication, yet the biggest news of Saturday was left to the foreign media and protesters to break themselves. There is speculation that major media corporations dragged their feet on purpose to cover it, because after all- the public was protesting specifically against corporations. Were the major news networks purposefully avoiding the subject to save their own dignity?

If journalists are going to continue referring to themselves as our nation's 'watchdog', then they need to be watching their own business moves. When you are a journalist, you don't do what's best for the corporation. You're doing what's best for your nation's civilians, and sometimes, you need to swallow your pride.

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Twitter Changes the Game for Reporters

With the arrival of the 21st Century, journalism has had to evolve to keep up with reader's demands. In this new, technological age, social media websites have completely changes the journalistic world. Social media sites, especially Twitter, provide readers with constant, immediate news. This has created a more competitive working environment for reporters to break the stories first.

Additionally, journalists cannot simply be reporters in this changing business. They must also become editors, multi-media experts, and marketers to develop a brand for themselves in a way that makes them stand out from their competitors. They have to know how to do it all.

Twitter gives journalists tools they never dreamed would have been possible in the past millennium. This website allows journalists to watch for trends, establish sources, share and develop their stories, and brand themselves to millions of followers almost instantaneously. Plus they can do this all in the palm of their hand.

This one website has also changed the way readers get their news. The days of the newspaper are a thing of the past; replaced by LED screened cellphones and tablets. Readers want to know what is happening "now" not what happened yesterday, or even ten minutes ago. If journalists want to be successful in today's field, then it is essential they get with the times and use the resources in front of them wisely.

photo from www.creativecommons.org by okalkavan

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Reactions to Osama's Death

The night of May 2, 2011 is one that no American can forget. President Barack Obama declared, "Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden." It was with these words that the entire country erupted in shock and celebration. The media also exploded with the news, and different themes were prominent in different mediums.

Citizens jumped onto Facebook and Twitter, many praising the military for the kill and using humor. @NZAfro tweeted, "R.I.P. Osama bin Laden- World Hide and Go Seek Champion. (2001-2011). Social media websites also hosted many discussions over if bin Laden was really dead or not.

Mainstream media focused on the details of the events leading up to and during the attack on bin Laden's compound. These outlets also spotlighted on the American and global reaction to the event.

As websites like Facebook and Twitter get even more popular, it allows the average citizen to have a say in the news and what themes get covered. Collecting information from many different mediums is vital to get the entire story because there is such a variety in the coverage. Events like this help support Marshall McLuhan's famous quote, "The medium is the message."

Photo credit: Sgt. Randall A Clinton

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Twitter's Place in Publications

"Off the record," journalists have heard this over and over again, and it is a bit of a disappointment every time. Clearly journalists want the entirety of an interview to be "on the record"; we are not nearly as interested if it can't be published. With this in mind, what is the right way to use tweets?

As of late, members of the senate have been claiming that their public tweets are to be considered off the record. The fact that these tweets are public, for everyone to see, should point out how outlandish of a suggestion this is.

According to Jeff Sonderman on Poynter, several prominent bloggers and writers noticed this disclaimer and were then forced to remove several tweet quotes from their blog, noting the absurdity of the situation.

If prominent members of the senate are willing to tweet their thoughts for the entire Twitter community to see, then they should be equally willing to have these tweets quoted in text. It is no different then journalists using a quote from a previous speech. Senate members should back off, and keep their tweets "on record

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Don't Write Off Journalism

I will admit when I started taking Beginning Newswriting and Reporting I didn't give journalism a great deal of thought. I'm studying public relations why on earth do I need to know about writing news articles?

As the semester progressed I saw the value the class had on my field of study. It's really not a big shocker that some of the concepts in journalism transcend into public relations.

Twitter is a great way to share news. Why not share upcoming events with links to a website?

Blogging can be used to discuss a view on a topic or it can work well when writing a blurb about an event on a website.

Video blogging while not as prominent as a tool definitely has potential. Show clips from the process of getting the event ready or from years past.

Lesson learned is that journalism isn't just about being held up in a dimly lit room rushing to get an article together. It's really just another way of communicating and getting information out.

Photo Credit:www.allyou.com

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Social Networks Boost Customer Service

Many businesses are using social media to boost their customer service these days.

Often times consumers give feedback about a company or its product on Facebook, Twitter or any other social network.

For example, if I bought the new iPad I would most likely tell all my friends on Facebook about it and hashtag it on Twitter. Whether the experience was a good one or bad one. Apple Inc. could then directly respond to me about my comment.

If Apple Inc. decided to engage in a conversation with me I would become more loyal to the brand and most likely speak highly of the company.

The same can also go with celebrities and their fans, but that's a different story.

Also, if the social network pages for Apple Inc. would change statuses and tweets to get consumer feedback the customer would feel that he/she had a say in the next product being designed.

For example, the first iPad didn't have a front or rear facing camera. This was a big complaint about the product. When the iPad 2 came out the designer made sure to include both cameras.

Many people think social networks are harmful to businesses because there isn't face to face interaction. In reality it can help a business drastically with customer service because the company can reach many more individuals and receive a greater amount of feedback.

Photo Credit: George Nantwi via Creative Commons

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Twitter in Trouble?

It seems that all is not well in the world of Twitter. That is, according to a recent cover story in Fortune that warns Twitter's usage appears to be flat lining.

The story says Twitter has garnered 200 million citizens from all over the world, but one hundred million of them are absent altogether, and Twitter.com has about 20 million fewer visitors per month than Myspace.

Twitter also seems to lack a visionary product leader while suffering from outages and not turning a profit. Finally, CNN reported on Wednesday that UberMedia is planning to build a rival micro-blogging network that could shun the the famous 140-character limit.

Now the question is does Twitter really have a problem on their hands? Should "tweeps" begin looking to another city with fewer rules?

Well, looking at the numbers Quantcast says there's been a 50% jump in usage in the past five months, Google Analytics says international traffic has risen 83% in the past year, and because so many people are tweeting on their mobile device or third party app, the Twitter.com numbers are incomplete.

Even without the numbers Twitter is the only service that actually immerses you in a global conversation, especially when there's a natural disaster, major sporting event, or revolution going on.

What about it's 140-character limit? This is, and will be, Twitter's greatest asset despite the little minority of people that protest against it. It's the stop-light system that keeps the traffic flowing smoothly and allows everyone to get a word in.

If something is worth saying, it's worth saying as short and brief as possible. Just ask Poets and screenwriters.

With that said, I believe the answer to "Is Twitter in trouble?" is simply, no. Twitter has accomplished something special and is far away from being outdone or repeated in any way.

Wouldn't you agree?

Photo Credit: money.cnn.com via Creative Commons

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