Now that news is a conversation, one of the greatest challenges facing journalists is how to manage, and leverage, that conversation.
It is often said that “information wants to be free,” but it is truer in the digital age that information wants to be analyzed, shared, synthesized, curated, aggregated, commented on and distributed.
Making Conversation
What began as comments on news stories and blog posts has mushroomed into full social networking tools on news sites and full participation by journalists in dominant social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.
“Being social with users is easier than ever before, and the more social a journalist is with people, the more sources a journalist can mine.” Patrick Thornton, editor of BeatBlogging.org
If you want more audience, you have to go where the audience is and participate how the audience participates.
The Bakersfield Californian launched the first citizen journalism project (Northwest Voice) in 2004 and a local social network (Bakotopia) in 2005. By 2009, the online community included 30,000 user profiles, 29,000 friend connections and 1,000 blogs written by readers. The news company developed a local niche strategy with 11 online brands, and 6 have a corresponding publication.
Build and Mange a Community Online
Make news participatory
Bradley Horowitz, senior Director at Yahoo, conceptualized the 1-10-100 rule for participatory online communities.
- 1% of the community actually creates content.
- 10% synthesizes content by commenting, e-mailing the link, blogging and linking back, or voting on it.
- 100% will benefit from the actions of the first 2 groups.
Examples
- Message Boards: FredTalk.com
- Most commented, e-mailed, viewed: various sites
- Display blog links to an article: Washingtonpost.com
- Social bookmarking and sharing tools on stories: various sites
- Social networks on sites: Times People (The New York Times), usatoday.com
Journalists must get involved
- User-generated content and community is not free. It doesn’t cost money, but it takes a commitment of time, energy and resources that in some cases could be comparable.
- For Example, Bakersfield editors must now also solicit content and community participation, moderate comments, blogs, user submissions, running contests to drive participation and traffic, informing community establishments about advertising opportunities.
- Breaking news, especially, bring excellent opportunities to tap the power of the crowd and build social capital for the news organization, the journalist or both.
- Acknowledge a tip from your audience if you get one.
- Set up a message board forum so your audience can ask and answer questions with each other.
- Develop sources through social networks
- Journalists can use social networks to develop deeper sources around specific reporting beats (find them on Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn, find them on niche social networks like CafeMom or Gather, build a niche social network with Ning or Google Groups).
Collaborate with your community
- Rather than competing with citizens who can supply first-hand accounts and footage of news events, journalists are learning how to collaborate with them.
- Niche social networks for journalists to collaborate include WiredJournalists.com, ReportingOn.com, CodingJournalists.ning.com
Keep Conversation Accurate and Ethical
- Set Guidelines for participants
- Be aware of your company’s social media policy and ethics policy
- Translate those policies into guidelines to be agreed upon by participants
- In general, journalists should use social media the same way they use offline social interactions.
- Monitor offensive postings
- If a news story turns too controversial, some editors will turn off the ability for readers to comment.
- Treat comment areas like a garden: a little care and nurturing every day will go a long way toward making a healthy community. And remove any weeds as soon as they appear.
Know your legal responsibilities
- Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the basis for how news organizations and other Internet publishers should handle comments, message boards and other controversial content submitted by users.
Correct Errors
- Many news organizations add a note at the top or bottom of an article that has been corrected.
- Corrections/mistakes must be made/acknowledged immediately.
Social media, used correctly, connects journalists and reporters to people and information.
Mightier Than A Sword 