By its very nature, breaking news happens unexpectedly. Simply waiting for something to start trending on Twitter is not an option for journalists – you’ll have to actively seek it out.
The most important rule is to switch perspectives with the eyewitness and ask yourself, “What would I tweet if I were an eyewitness to an accident or disaster?”
WhatsApp at 1 billion: How can journalists use the chat app for newsgathering?
As of early February, WhatsApp is in the pockets of over one billion people worldwide – one in seven of every man, woman and child on the planet.
The messaging app’s potential as a broadcast platform was quickly seized upon by news organisations eager to tap into the user base, whether to deliver top stories and traffic news to readers on their commute, give an audience updates to an ongoing story, or act as a platform for public service announcements in times of national crisis.
The Washington Post is trying to identify reader boredom and recapture distracted readers by directing them to other Post stories they might find more interesting.
Its new Re-Engage feature, currently for mobile web, observes how long a reader remains completely idle on a story page or how quickly a reader begins swiping the screen to scroll to the bottom of a story, and then offers a small pop-up suggesting other Post stories.
“How many people are still seeking clarification about what all this ‘product’ talk is?” Heather Chaplin, director of the Journalism + Design program at the New School, asked the crowd gathered last night to hear BuzzFeed’s Stacy-Marie Ishmael, The Guardian’s Aron Pilhofer, and Vox Media’s Trei Brundrett tackle that very question.
So what is “product” in the news context, and what do product managers do exactly? Ishmael offered one useful way to think about it:
There’s a nice scene in Hail, Caesar!, the Coen brothers’ latest movie, in which one Hollywood character astutely observes: “We’re not talking about money — we’re talking about economics.”
Indeed. This year’s crazy-making U.S. presidential election further illuminates and blurs that divide. Many of my fellow Americans buy into the twin “we’re being ripped off” sentiments of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. The Big Shortonly animates the same emotions. There’s a relationship between the national anti-financial movements we’re seeing and what’s going on with our local newspapers.
News is traumatic. When there are enough smartphones and social media accounts for everyone on the planet, pictures of newsworthy images spread fast – posted to YouTube, to Twitter, to Facebook, Instagram and more. Footage of air strikes, war crimes, protests, plane crashes, police shootings, bombings and massacres need to be verified and filtered by journalists before they reach the public. This can affect journalists in different ways.
The majority of the many questions we received when we launched our research report highlighting the issue of vicarious trauma in newsrooms asked “what can I do about it?”, “how do I make sure I look after myself?”. These are good questions. It pushed us to write tips on this site that emerged from the research. We listed some of the most common coping mechanisms we encountered. We hope they have been useful for social media journalists who view distressing eyewitness media in their work.
If you’re a publisher who’s been waiting for the opportunity to make your content available through Facebook Instant Articles, you don’t have to wait too much longer: Facebook will open up Instant Articles to all publishers in April, the company announced Wednesday.
Local news is the lifeblood of communities. But with traditional models of paying for local coverage no longer working, residents of too many cities, towns, and neighborhoods find themselves with little of the information they need to be informed, involved citizens.
‘Twas the week for BuzzFeed strategy analysis pieces: Fast Company declared BuzzFeed the most innovative company of 2016, kicking off a week of coverage; Poynter also ran a story on how BuzzFeed built its investigative reporting team.
You’ll probably want to read the articles in full, but here are a few noteworthy things:
It was a dramatic night at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. CJ, a three-year-old German shorthaired pointer, pulled off an upset to steal Best in Show from Rumor, a German shepherd and the presumed heir apparent to the title.
And that was just on stage. Bryan Armen Graham, deputy sports editor of The Guardian U.S., was there in the benching area below the stage, where hebroadcast a pre-show on Periscope and Facebook Live for viewers at home. His reports showed a backstage area packed with hundreds of dogs, dog aficionados, dog handlers, and owners, plus a surprising amount of pizza.
This just in: How 9 news organizations are reporting election results live on the web
’Tis the season of colorful speeches, embarrassing (campaign-destroying) tweets, and unbelievable victories. Will Hillary Clinton come out strong over Bernie Sanders in the South, or is Sanders making inroads with minority voters? Will Donald Trump sustain his momentum today in the Super Tuesday races?
A new report from the American Press Institute looks at digital subscription adoption at newspapers across the U.S. The report’s author, API research fellowAlex T. Williams, examined 98 papers; of those, 77 had a paid digital subscription plan of some sort, and 71 of those plans were launched just in the last five years.
If capitalism ever gets its own American national holiday (and Black Friday is for some reason unavailable), let me suggest a late February date, to coincide with the annual release of Warren Buffett’s letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. The Nebraska billionaire each year writes about the performance of Berkshire’s various companies, yes, but also wraps in astute observations about the broader economy, politics, and the comparative merits of flying into Omaha or Kansas City. It’s always a good read. (The now-retired Fortune editor Carol Loomis has helped give the letters their clear-eyed prose for decades.)
Financial Times’ response to ad-cutting threat from HP is great
The Financial Times ran a column critical of Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman. The company’s marketing chief, Henry Gomez, threatened to cut the advertising it ran in the newspaper. Lucy Kellaway’s response is perfect.
What, exactly, did newspapers across the U.S. have to say about the Holocaust during World War II? A digital project from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, newly out of beta, is turning to “citizen historians” to research how their hometown newspapers covered the Holocaust throughout the 1930s and 1940s.