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.

What Journalism Students Should Demand from J-Schools

I've long been a fan of Robert Niles at the Online Journalism Review, part of the Knight Digital Media Center and USC. Robert runs the amusement park safety site ThemeParkInsider.com and posts some great resources on his Twitter account, @robertniles.

And I really enjoyed his latest post to the Online Journalism Review called, Eight Things Journalism Students Should Demand from Journalism Schools.

At a time when the news industry is changing radically, students should expect the eight things Niles listed in his piece. They need mentors and role models, job contacts, the opportunities to explore linear and non-linear storytelling. They need a well-rounded liberal arts education, and journalism instructors who focus on the future of news ... and not relive the good old days.

We still must teach journalism fundamentals -- AP Style, accuracy, fairness, ethics, law, reporting and editing -- but we need to reach further and give them opportunities to grow as entrepreneurs, producers, backpack journalists and in other mediums.

As I often say in discussions with my friends still working in the industry: Adapt or perish.

And it's never been more relevant.

Viral Video and FOX Anchor's Flub

We're pretty sure FOX 5 New York anchor Ernie Anastos meant to say "plucking that chicken" or even "clucking that chicken" but something else went out over the air during a recent newscast. And you didn't have to be in the Big Apple to see it.

The live footage became an instant classic on YouTube, and Mashable reports that the video has already been seen by more than 800,000 people. It's been passed around Facebook, Twitter and even Chicago morning radio talk show hosts were talking about it Friday morning.

Here is the video, and be sure to watch the look on his co-anchor's face:

Chi-Town Daily News Blog Folds ... Or Does It?

Big news on the Chicago blog scene today: Chi-Town Daily News has folded ... maybe.

Editor Geoff Dougherty, a former Chicago Tribune reporter, said the organization, which received a Knight Foundation grant in 2007, ran out of cash. He said the blog will re-organize as a for-profit venture in a month. We'll see.

My take: Chi-Town Daily News was considered one of the better start-ups in the Chicago area. It's sad to see it go. But as we saw in the late 1990s, there is an end to grants and venture capital. Back then, venture capitalists expected a return on investment in five years. Now, your startup is lucky to have two years. Web 2.0 is on a business plan and profitability schedule, just as Web 1.0 was and Web 3.0 will be.

Chi-Town Daily News lasted four years, the last two thanks to the Knight grant and other money raised. It's important to note that Knight money also was invested in the hyperlocal site, Everyblock.com. Everyblock was purchased by MSNBC a few weeks ago.

Cool Tool: Convert Documents to .PDFs

I love finding new software that makes my life easier. Especially when it's free.

Jim Janossy, who teaches at DePaul University, shared a great resource with me this week: CutePDF. The free software allows you to convert a document into a .PDF by linking to a conversion tool through the "print" menu on your original document.

The software also is available in a "pro" version for $50, but I found that the freeware met all of my needs. There is nothing I despise more than scanning documents into a .PDF format, and this tool saves me a LOT of time converting documents. Give it a try.

And thanks again to Jim for sharing this great resource!

Raw Video Appeal

One of the things we talked about this summer at the Poynter Institute was the value of raw video footage. Footage that needs no voice over or explanation tied to it. We'll explore this throughout the quarter, but here are some examples of raw video that's been posted on YouTube:

1. Obama's election night celebration in Chicago's Grant Park: Shot with a camera phone, this is a great example of the value of raw video. It takes you there. In the crowd, in the trenches. The TV cameras on election night gave us the big picture, but this footage shows what it was like to be a part of the historic night.



2. Detroit City Council fights: Typically, a routine council meeting or speech doesn't make for great raw video. But this is an exception: when something so outrageous or odd behavior (remember news judgment standards).

Cool Twitter Conferences Tips

The Cool Twitter Conferences stopped in Chicago in August and panelists provided some great tips for journalists, social media gurus and marketers on how to use the service.

Teaching Social Media to Journalists

For mer than 12 years, I've been a strong believer in weaving online resources into a broad journalism curriculum.

Twitter and other social media tools should be implemented to every journalism class. I recently did this with an advanced sports reporting class I co-taught at Columbia College Chicago.

We created the web site Beyond the Game to showcase narrative storytelling, and linked off to each student's blog. We also created a Facebook group page to promote updates, and students were encouraged to post their packages on their Twitter feeds.

Here are some other creative ways to teach social media to journalists, based on a recent Poynter Institute live chat with Columbia professor and online guru Sree Sreenivasan:

• MuckRack's feed is an excellent way to see journalists in action on Twitter.
  
  
• Poynter's Ellyn Angelotti provides some great examples of how media outlets are effectively using Twitter.
  
  
• How students can avoid information overload on social media sites.
  
  
• Sree offers his own tips on Twitter.
  
  
• Mashable's Twitter guide covers the basics.
  
  
• Mashable also offers 10 ways j-schools are teaching social media.
  
  

Michael Jackson's Death and the Internet

I've long been an opponent of journalists using Wikipedia as a source for backgrounding people and issues they write about. (See a recent post on the topic.)

Exhibit A: CNN reported that a prankster posted false information on Michael Jackson's Wikipedia bio shortly after national media reported the pop star's death. The prankster wrote that Jackson was strangled by his brother, Tito, with a microphone cord.



Jackson's Wikipedia bio had more than 500 edits in 24 hours, some of the information accurate, some not. The site eventually had to block edits to the bio.

Advice I've always given student journalists: Use Wikipedia as a way of developing questions, not confirming answers. Go elsewhere to find the answers. But use Wikipedia carefully and sparingly. Because it's a wiki, anyone can post unconfirmed, false information to a bio. It's happened many times, and it has been picked up by the mainstream media.

And use the rule of three with any information you find. If you see a story or rumor, check it out with reliable sources. Internet-rumored deaths Jeff Goldblum, Harrison Ford and Sinbad in recent years all proved false once someone took the time to call a source close to the person.

Jackson's global appeal made the story the biggest Internet story ever in terms of traffic, surpassing even 9/11. But we need to factor in the fact that social media and mobile media attributed greatly to the surge of Jackson's traffic. Technology and news delivery platforms make a difference, as evidenced with this story.

The CNN story also reported that Google News, Twitter and celebrity gossip site TMZ had traffic issues after the story broke on Jackson's death.

Update: The Maynard Institute provided an in-depth analysis of the overwhelming coverage of Jackson's death.

Obama Calls on Blogger at Presser

President Obama caused a stir when he called on a Huffington Post blogger at a recent White House news conference.

This upset some established, traditional media covering the White House who suspected that the blogger was a plant and that the president knew the question in advance.

The Huffington Post and the White House both denied it.

Read more about it in this New York Times article.