Zombie Journalism

Dispatches from the living amongst journalism's walking dead

Tag: newsrooms

I’m more than a Twitter Monkey

By

On February 3, 2012

In Rants, Social Media

So can I level with you guys? I’m relieved that I’m not going to be doing this same social media jam forever.

Not because I don’t like it – actually, I still really love it. I live to send out a tweet and see a flood of reaction come in as mentions and retweets. It warms my heart to see a Facebook entry with 100+ likes and a flood of often argumentative comments. And I’m not going to lie, I was bursting with pride at my part in making Huffington Post Politics the  most-trafficked politics site on the web last fall. It feels good to help drive 1.6 million social referrals in a month (December 2011).

No, I’m relieved because I’ve been worrying about my future and the future of the social media role at news organizations, for lots of reasons.

The Twitter Machine is a Cruel Mistress

At some news organizations, the social media editor role is one based largely in strategy, product development, evangelization and training. In other cases, the “social media editor” is manually running a newsroom’s branded social media accounts alone or as part of a small team, in a role I fondly refer to as “The Twitter Monkey”.

In theory, many social media jobs are intended to include both types of roles – but that doesn’t always work in practice (and I’m living proof). When you’re the/a voice behind a brand account that’s serious about breaking news – that is your life, end of story.

Watching and curating streams, responding to mentions, keeping an eye out for breaking news, promoting reporters’ work – it takes up so much time and mental energy that it’s difficult to do much else very effectively (and that includes being a spouse, friend, parent, pet owner, etc.).

The truth is, I’ve rarely had time in the past four years to actually step back and look at the big picture of what I’ve been doing. You have to be able to study, research and read to be able to create and evolve social strategy. You need to have time to experiment with new tools and practices and to work on new products to engage readers. You have to be available to help others with their own social media dilemmas. All of that is very difficult to do when you’re shoveling coal to power the Twitter Machine 24/7.

While that was fun, I wasn’t honing the sort of skills I feel would ultimately keep me employable in digital media, which brings me to Crippling Fear #2.

 

Joining the Twitter Monkey Seniors Tour

When I started running social media for The Cincinnati Enquirer in early 2008, there weren’t many social media editors out there. Most of us were former reporters, producers or editors who’d caught the Twitter bug and wanted to share it. We were part of the newsroom power structure from our former jobs, which helped move our practices into the rest of the operation.

These days, I’ve noted the social media specialist roles are increasingly filled by young, entry-level employees – and it isn’t surprising, social media has given many young journalists (myself included) a ticket straight into some of the largest media organizations.

Maybe this role has gotten younger because newsroom managers assume people in their 20s are naturally good at social media. Or maybe it’s because the role isn’t considered as much of a skill position as it was just a few years ago. Or maybe it’s because newsrooms don’t want to pay a social media specialist a salary befitting a few more years experience.

Whatever the reason, I feared (perhaps needlessly) that I’d soon be in a place where I wouldn’t be hirable as a social media editor anymore. I’d have to move on – and I was doubly worried I’d have nowhere to go.

It used to be you could start as a copyeditor, reporter or web producer and eventually (with good work) move up to be a mid-level editor, then an editor, then a director and so on. There was a system. The social media specialist, as a fairly new role, often isn’t in that system (from my anecdotal evidence-gathering). Their skills, while useful for their purposes, may not be likely to translate into larger digital roles in the minds of top level managers.

I can’t tell you how many times in my career I’ve expresses interest in jobs outside of social media – in content editing, digital management, news editor-type jobs, and been rebuffed with “but your experience seems to be in social media”. Lucky for me, I had a career before social media – and I’ve managed to do enough outside of my Twitter monkeying to keep those skills sharp.

Long story short, I was afraid I would be forever branded a “Social Media Person” – and then wouldn’t even be able to be hired for those existing social media positions, anyway.

 

Social Media =The Mafia

Maybe my fears are silly, I do come from a long line of worriers. I just can’t help but wonder what will become of my generation of social editors. Will those who want to move on be given the chance, as I have? Will the Twitter Monkeys be able to throw off their chains and join the editor meetings a bit more often?

I said in 2008 – and I still believe – that if we as the designated social media types were doing our jobs well, we wouldn’t be necessary because everyone in the newsroom would be proficient at social media.  That’s the best possible future I can imagine for the role of social media in our industry.

As for me, I know I may be leaving the ranks of the Twitter Monkeys, but I’m not out of social media by any means. I’ll still be wearing a hardhat, I just won’t be driving the forklift anymore.  Perhaps I can do all of that fun strategizing, teaching and big picture thinking I’ve heard so much about. I’ll get to spend more time on my own accounts, for once, and I’ll be helping others achieve their own goals. Man, I can’t wait.

Eds note: This is sort of stream of consciousness. Forgive my errors and future edits, I was on a roll. 

How and why news orgs should answer critics on Twitter

By

On October 27, 2010

In Industry News & Notes, Social Media

There was a minor kerfuffle in the intersection of journalism and social media this week when the Washington Post told its staff not to respond to critics on the paper’s official Twitter accounts following a not-so-great interaction with @glaad about a controversial editorial decision.

Reaction in the social media world was about what you’d expect.

David Heyman, a former Post employee, commented on TBD’s story, “So if I’m understanding correctly, the Post branded accounts are to be used for old-fashioned publishing, pushing the Post’s stories out to an appreciative audience or for the Post to receive UGC to again, push out. To use SM for actual interaction with interested parties is forbidden.”

And there were tweets, most like this one:

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It’s the Post’s prerogative if they don’t want to have outward-facing replies to critics on their biggest Twitter accounts. They probably aren’t alone in adopting such a policy – and it isn’t an entirely bad one. The problem is when “don’t respond publicly on this account” really means “don’t respond at all”.

This memo has prompted a good bit of soul-searching by journalists and the audiences they serve.  Media blogger Ron Mwangaguhunga explored both sides of the comment/no comment issue. In Mashable’s coverage, readers were polled as to whether or not they think news organizations should respond to readers on Facebook. Almost 50 percent said “Yes, there should be an open dialogue” and 23 percent more said “Sometimes, depending on the situation”.

Social media was created for back-and-forth interaction – and that’s what Twitter users want from the brands they follow. The best companies out there know this and they’ve taken advantage of the medium by using Twitter as an extension of their customer service department.

Many news organizations, on the other hand, use their social media accounts as little more than a big mouthpiece to broadcast their links to an adoring audience. This practice is a prime example of an adherence to an old way of thinking about the relationship between media outlets and the readers who keep them going.

I’ve been running Twitter accounts for a news organizations of some sort since early 2008, so I have a little bit of experience with handling complaints, criticism and questions from readers and competitors. I’d never call myself an expert, but I have a few words of advice gathered from my own anecdotal evidence and years-long tinkering.

How a news organization should manage customer service on Twitter

If the person follows your account, reply via direct message: If you do this, immediately follow them as well, so you can receive a direct message in response.

If they do not follow you, first, follow them. This will show you saw their tweet. Now you have a choice:

1. Reply directly to them from the organization’s Twitter account. If it is a direct reply, the only people who would see if are you, the person you’re replying to and anyone that follows both of you. This has to be a tweet starting with @theirname.

2. Reply on your own account, but be sure you either identify in the tweet or in your bio where you work. There are good reasons to take this route – maybe the information shared is somewhat exclusive, or maybe you don’t want to bog down your followers with excess tweets. Remember, while this may be “your” account, you’re answering as a representative of your company – so be professional.

3. Re-tweet/reply. If there are a lot of people with the same point, or you want to address it to a larger audience, re-tweet a user and work in a short reply. This will go to all of your followers, so you may not want to do this all of the time with customer service responses to avoid filling followers’ feeds.

Whatever you choose to do, don’t ignore a complaint or a question sent your way. Even if you don’t have an answer, say so. Thank them for commenting, give them an email address of someone with more info – anything so long as you acknowledge you are listening.

I can’t express how many times people have seemed genuinely thankful just to be answered on Twitter, though with so many brands being active in social media these days – replies are getting to be expected instead of just thoughtful.

To take it a step further, you should also have a running Twitter search up for your organization’s name and primary link. This will give you the people who are passing on your links, those complaining without addressing the organization directly and those who may not even know the company’s Twitter handle.

This is one way reaching out can really open doors with critics. They weren’t even talking to you, but you took the time to answer. That’s excellent customer service – and it can really win over critics.

Excellent Twitter customer service, above anything else (even breaking news), is the way to build a loyal, re-tweet happy follower base.

4 potential uses for Google Wave in news

By

On November 6, 2009

In Industry News & Notes, New Technology

Lots of journalism’s resident tech geeks and big thinkers have been talking up the potential of Google Wave to “transform journalism”. I’m not going to go so far as to say that, but it does have a lot of features that make it an ideal candidate for fixing problems a lot of newsrooms face thanks to limitations in current technology.

Here are four general ways newsrooms may chose to implement Google Wave. Assuredly, they have countless wavelets.

1. It’s a newsroom budgeting solution

The problem: Anyone who’s had to share a newsroom budget in Word/Google Docs/Excel/etc. knows the struggle of shared document updating and access. Wave takes Google Docs to the next level – and makes it a lot easier for several parties to edit the same document in real time. No more “This document is currently in use, you will enter read-only mode”.

In Google Wave, you can edit the type submitted by anyone else. You can add comments to any part of the type and spin off conversations/collaborations from the budget to, say, talk about a specific long-term project. You can copy and past whole sections of a wave (the entire “document”) or a wavelet (a spun-off conversation within the document) to new waves, making it easier to carry a daily budget to the next day.

If a newsroom had daily, weekly, monthly and longer term budgets in Google Wave, we might not even need to have several meetings a day just so know where we are on today’s budget.

Here’s a potential walk-through:

Editors all add their reporters’ budget lines into a semi-private daily budget wave. The Managing Editor has questions about a particular budget line that she adds as a wavelet to that potion of the text. A back-and-forth with the reporter and their editor ensues there.

Photo Editor goes though the daily budget and adds notation as to which stories have art by creating news blips (individual comments) or starting new wavelets (conversations) within the daily budget as to why certain assignments weren’t shot, when art should get in, etc. She can also add the actual photos or videos into the budget for a page designer/web producer to grab later.

In other words, it’s your daily budget meetings, digitized. What a time saver!

2. It’s a reporting collaboration tool

The problem: Working on a project with another reporter or editor is never ideal. There’s always a mess of emails, attached Word files for notes and meetings, meetings, meetings. In the end, it’s difficult for the research and writing of two reporters to fully integrate  in a way that doesn’t look like two people were thrown together on a story.

Because of it’s real-time nature and media sharing capabilities, Wave is an ideal place for a newsroom project team to work. The reporters could not only share all of their notes, recorded conversations and research in this shared space, they could also co-write the story (or sections of the story) in a Wiki-ized wave.

The reporters can offer one another notes on each and every section of the article as they piece it together, rewrite or edit sections according to new info and insert new pieces in the middle of the old ones to help the story take shape. As one gets a quote that would fit well int the story, they can insert it as a wavelet, with the audio of the interview included if they’d want.

Reporters could, like this enterprising chap, conduct interviews with sources via Wave, either as a chat or video conference. that way, they could each ask questions (even if they aren’t in the same place) and involve many sources in the same conversation if needed.

All the while, an editor can see the progress every step of the way and make comments and edits on every portion of the story, even if a reporter is currently editing. Collaborators from video, graphics and photo can also chime in at various points, showing the latest photo of the source quoted (for instance) or asking questions relating to their part of the project.

And all along the way, the staff may chose to open up the research or even the article in progress to the public to get feedback, gather more information or just be transparent (this has potential most of all in public service journalism and investigations). Say you want to open your notes and data up to the story sources via a wave – they can rebut one another and add more info of their own that can be used in the final story.


3. It’s a community conversation tool

The problem: You want to get conversation going about a particular topic, but your existing commenting and message board tools limit the ability to communicate with useful commenters, while allowing the conversation to be taken off-track from the original topic.

The branching nature of Google Wave makes it great for getting lots of feedback and opinions. After initially putting the topical wave out there, the creator can take the conversation in many directions. He/she can communicate with all of the waves participants or speak individually wit users within the wave (say, to get more information).

If a participant wants to go off-topi (and they will), they can create a new wavelet in the overall wave and run with it.And the best part? Google Wave is attached to your email address and, thus, your Google identity. It’s a lot closer to transparent commenting than most systems have now.

The Austin American-Statesman has been experimenting with a daily news wave, with varying degrees of success. While Social Media Editor Robert Quigley has a lot of great ideas for how to use wave, he’s still limited by the fact that even in Austin, not everyone has an invite – and if they do, not many know how to use the technology yet.

4. It’s a public Wiki or crowdsourced story

The problem: You want to involve the public in an upcoming project, but the “tell us” box with your email address in the paper or on your blog just isn’t getting much response. If it gets any, it’s in separate email conversations with several people that can’t communicate effectively with one another.

As a spin-off of the to preview ideas – why not let the public do the heavy lifting? Sure, you might not want them to write your health care coverage, but why not give them a shot at editing and writing community resources, opinion articles and reports from news events.

Say you want to publish a guide to every neighborhood in your coverage area. Post up what you have in a wave and invite the public to edit and add facts, places, photos and more. They live there – so why not let them contribute?

Or, put your paper’s work up regarding a local event, a public crime, a landmark, etc. and let outside participants add their views at every point, edit in or out details they may have observed first-hand.

This technology may also go a step further to allow readers to arrange page design from a wave. Crazy? Maybe, but it’s one of many great ideas from the LA Times’ tech blog.

Great ideas

I mentioned these above, but you have to be sure you check out these posts that have great takes on the four ideas above.

  • Riding Google Wave’s Potential – Robert Quigley (of the Statesman), has a lot of hopes for Google Wave’s potential to transform community journalism via collaboration.

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