The New Age of Twitter Journalism

This is how Miami does it.
How does your newsroom do it?

Have you ever tried tweeting at a major news organization? How often have they responded or retweeted? Probably not often — and that corresponds to the findings offered by a GW/Pew study of 13 major news organizations which found “limited use of the institution’s public Twitter identity, one that generally takes less advantage of the interactive and reportorial nature of the Twitter.”

So when I went to The Miami Herald as part of a much larger project looking at newsrooms and news buildings, I was pleasantly surprised to find it, like some other newspapers, has actual people manning Twitter — breaking news “by hand,” interacting with readers, and having a genuine public conversation over the main @miamiherald Twitter account, with its 98,000 followers. (Aside from Twitter, The Miami Herald is making ample use of its Facebook account, posting new stories once an hour and relying on feedback from the 46,000-plus audience for stories and tips — and as an extension of the Public Insight Network pioneered by American Public Radio.)

http://bit.ly/16LPKRg

 

Conspicuously missing from this story is any mention whatsoever of what the fuck the Herald is actually gaining from any of this. Readers? No. Web traffic? No, and the article even says that. Kleinman and others acknowledge that the tweet-to-web traffic conversion isn’t what they’d like it to be. But for them, Twitter is a way to build an audience, establish their continued brand prominence, and carry on a conversation.

This is just the latest bullshit in a never-ending stream of bullshit. Eight years ago it was blogging. You must blog! Now it's Twitter. You must tweet! Still chasing the fool's gold.

 

Even so, what's the downside to doing it?

 

The time required and the degradation of the reporting you'd otherwise be doing, and the credibility problems inherent to every news story that plays out on Twitter.

 

The Herald twitter account is run by whoever is running the website that night. It doesn't really require a ton of time to do, and it isn't being done by someone who would otherwise be reporting. So I'm not sure how valid those criticisms are.

I'm not sure if other papers are similar. But in my time there, running the twitter account was never anything like a burden that detracted from otherwise useful time.

I really don't see the downside to running it the way the Herald does.

 

Is this really the "New Age?"

I think most established journalists have figured out that if you're not on Twitter (even if only, at the very least, to monitor the news), you're a step behind everyone else.

 

You forgot to close this with a "Get off my lawn."

 

It's new compared with 10 years ago. New enough for general context.

 

Ah yes. Anybody who dares note that none of this makes any business sense is just old.

How very New Age of you. I suppose I should respond by telling you to leave Mom's basement and get some fresh air.

 

New Age... just like that new gadget the iPhone.

 

Fetch me a beer, newbie.

There's a fresh hed just for you.

 

Can you measure ROI from Twitter?