Journalists Using Facebook as a Reporting Tool

Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism recently conducted an Advanced Facebook for Journalists podcast on its BlogTalkRadio network.

The hour-long show covered several ways to use Facebook as a reporting tool, including using it as a "virtual research assistant," crowd sourcing, promoting a story or site and organizing your contacts into "friend lists" so you can tailor your posts to specific groups.

Read about the podcast here at Mashable.

Listen to the hour-long show on BlogTalkRadio.com. (Note: You may have to use your default audio player -- in my case, iTunes -- to listen to the podcast. There's a button on the audio player to do this.

One of the best, and most controversial, early uses of social media in breaking news was during the Virginia Tech campus shootings. Reporters used Facebook and MySpace searches to find bios of victims and contact friends and family members.

The Roanoke (Va.) Times used social media in its award-winning coverage of the story. And students and campus leaders used it as a way of discussing the incident and sharing ideas.