Your byline becomes a valuable commodity online

We all have to live up to our bylines. Credibility rules and people need to trust the words following our names.  But we bylines may never have been as valuable as they are right now.

Last week, the journalism chat on Twitter turned to need to develop a new skill: attracting readers. It reminded me of a story that caught my eye on the newsstands in Wired: “Internet Famous Julia Allison and the Secrets of Self-Promotion.”

With Allison as its cover girl, Wired wrote:

“The New York Times has profiled her, and New York magazine has called Allison — a dating columnist for Time Out New York and former editor-at-large for Star — "the most famous young journalist in the city.’ "

Julia Allison is kicking your butt, but it has little to do with her being a journalist. Her site, xojulia.com, is her ”life cast” -- what she’s doing now. She’s Twitter on steroids.

And we could all learn from her.

That’s where the discussion on Twitter picked up, started by Howard Rheingold and Jay Rosen  over essential skills.  Rosen:

“Publishing used to be the barrier. Now that publishing is easy, getting your stuff picked up, linked to is an essential skill.”

Scott Rosenberg, formerly of Salon, added on his blog that it’s a skill most of us who work in print or broadcast are “occupationally blind to” because we are used to the media outlets we work for serving up audiences for us.

“They cannot see this because, all their working lives, the business of gathering their audience has been handled for them ... This privilege disintegrates out on the Web once you leave the protective umbrella and traffic supply of a media company.”

Even working for an established media company brings challenges for individual reporters, photographers and multimedia journalists who are now judged by the number of page view we get.

Yet as Dan Gillmor pointed out, many journalists are squeamish about going after their own readers, and rightfully so:

“Self-promotion should make you slightly uncomfortable. The best journalists know the absolute necessity of humility; when accomplishments lead to hubris, that's when trouble arrives. (I suppose this is true of every walk of life.) That's why self-promotion should never be motivated by pure ego, or resort to the kinds of slippery tactics that journalists love to expose in other fields.”

That’s what we can learn from Julia Allison.  Writes Wired’s Jason Tanz:

“It's easy to dismiss Allison as little more than a rank narcissist — and many of her vocal online critics are happy do just that. But come on, admit it: You've spent a good half hour trying to pick out the most flattering photo to upload to your MySpace page. You struggle to come up with the mot juste to describe your Facebook status. You keep a bank of self-portraits on Flickr or an online scrapbook on Tumblr or a running log of your daily musings on Blogger. You strategically court the gatekeepers at StumbleUpon or Digg. You compare the size of your Twitter-subscriber rolls to those of your friends. You set up Google Alerts to tell you whenever a blogger mentions your name. See? Self-promotion is no longer solely the domain of egotists and professional aspirants. Anyone can be a personal branding machine.”

The personal brand of our bylines are becoming our most precious commodity.  It is what will stay with us through circulation crises and layoffs.  As Rosen said, publishers used to hold the key. They provided the audience.  But could those roles be shifting, in favor of the content providers – those who report?

Cindy Stanford thinks so.  We met on Twitter, and I like to describe her as pursuing her PhD in social networking. She’s a doctorate student at Wichita State in the psychology of human-compter interaction. I sought her out following the reaction I received to my Twitter coverage of murder trials in Wichita. I wanted to know what I should do next. Should I only use Twitter for news coverage?  Should I post about my personal life?

Stanford I suggested I do both.

“People are becoming more aware and cognizant of where their information is coming from,” she said. “In the future, you’re personal brand is going to become important."

It’s something we all need to be thinking about as we move forward in our journalism careers.

To that end, Wired offers some fun tips on how to build an audience through Facebook and Twitter.

My favorite is a suggestion on how to get the most out of Twitter, from Joshua Allen of Denver, who today has 4,447 followers:

"Every single Twitter post you write should be something that could get you laid, ruin a marriage, or bring a tear to a fat little kid's eye."

For the record, my wife doesn’t necessarily agree that’s a good idea.

Cut to video: the continuing path of on-the-job training

I’ve been doing video for more than a year, and now I’m teaching it?  But wait: I’m still learning.

Go figure.  This is the world where we work.  More on that in a bit.

Every time I work with video, I learn more.  That’s not surprising. But it’s what I’m learning that surprises me.  Not only is it sharpening my skills, increasing my speed, but it’s also teaching me more about the people around me and what they will.

That’s one reason I love journalism: the reaction.  You used to get it eavesdropping in coffee shops or the breakfast café: reader voyeurism.  You’d see where they paused as they turned the pages of the newspaper and listened to their comments about the stories. If you were lucky, you’d hear something about your story.  Good or bad, at least they were talking.

“What are people talking about?” an editor used to say, as a way of spurring story ideas.

“Well,” I would answer, “if it’s not what we wrote in the paper this morning, we’re not doing our jobs.”

Now, we don’t have to lift our butts out of the chair.  We can track our page views and time spent and see exactly what draws attention.  Usually, it’s a cat playing a piano on You Tube (10 million and counting) or as we found locally, yodeling cats.

We can read their comments, right on the computer.  They can talk to us.  OMG!

I carry a video camera with me as a part of my day, now.  I don’t do as many videos as I would like, but I’m ready if something presents itself.

What I’ve learned:

• In addition to cats, people like stories about fire, even if it’s set on purpose.  I was sent to do a quick daily story on a controlled burn at one of our prairie preserves. Because I had a video camera handy, it was a natural.  And I thought the video turned out better than the story. 

• People like stories about animals (hence popularity of cats).  But they also like snakes wrapping around people's necks. I was sent out to cover a wildlife exhibition on a Saturday morning.  I remembered a lesson from Angela Grant about video illustrations, using only natural sound and images to convey the story.  I tried it, and people watched.

•  People will watch a murder. I earlier blogged about a bizarre murder trial where the crime was caught on tape by a convenience store security camera.  I picked up the two videos by plugging into the video pool in the courtroom. The same footage appeared in clips on the local television stations, but we could show whole segments.  It gave me nightmares, recording, editing, watching these repeatedly.  Others watched, too.  They were among our most popular videos that month.

•  I learned there’s an audience for courtroom videos.  I posted a couple on my beat blog at work, and another local blogger noticed and linked there.  At a local meeting of Twitter users (a “tweetup”), the author, Bobby Rozell, said it made him feel like he was at the trial.  I took note.  I’ll do those more.

Those videos have different elements, used different styles and drew audiences for different reasons.  I’m learning there’s not just one way to shoot video.

But my favorite is the interview, illustrated by detailed shots.  It’s simple but I think effective.

Both my recent efforts revolved around race and racism.

My editor Jill Cohan put me in charge of wrangling up multimedia for our team.  She also wanted me to teach other reporters. I started with Christina Woods, our cultural affairs reporter.  Christina is in that generation of journalists who are young enough to be excited about multimedia, but in mid-20s old enough to just have missed multimedia training in college.  So just like old guys such as I, she has to learn from scratch.

On our first effort, we couldn’t get our schedules together. I went solo to shoot a video on an Obama campaign sign defaced by racial slurs. Although Christina's story dealt much more in depth about the role race is playing in the presidential election, the story about the sign added depth of knowledge that wasn’t in the story and illustrated what she was talking about.  It added another layer.

For the 50^th anniversary of the nation's first lunch counter sit-in, Christina was on her first video assignment.  I had her watch me set up and camera and hook-up the wireless lavaliere mic. I rolled, while she conducted the interview that would serve as the foundation of the video.  She then acted as producer, telling me how to structure the interview, while watching me go through the motions in Final Cut Pro to construct the timeline.

Within a couple of hours, we had this video to go along with her story.  We thought it turned out pretty well.  Others must have, too.  People watched it.

This is my lesson plan with other reporters: you watch me do it, then you do it with me, then you do it on your own.  I think that’s a good way to get people comfortable with new skills.  We’ll see.

Christina, for one, is excited about finding her next video. She’s acting like I even taught her something.

My next project is a veteran reporter, who some might call a curmudgeon.  He's a talented narrative storyteller. I've told him with his experience and gift for structuring a yarn, he's a natural for video.

I pulled me aside the other day and said he was ready to learn video.

Watch out:  fire may soon be raining from the sky.

I'll keep you updated on our progress.

Lessons From a Laid-off Journalist: Become a Freelancer for Life

I received an e-mail today from a former colleague that literally gave me goosebumps and made me want to go out and conquer the world. 

His was a response to an e-mail I'd sent him earlier in the week complimenting him on a feature he'd written online, detailing how layoffs are affecting coverage of  very important topics, particularly healtchare. 

This is the part of the e-mail that made my adrenaline soar: 

"After I got laid off 2 weeks ago, at 10am, I left the building, bought a cell phone and vowed that my first 5 phone calls would be to set up freelance gigs."

Ha! Take that Mr. Layoff Guy! You didn't crush this man's spirit!!

This friend also went on to say that even while employed he is going to freelance for the rest of his life just to have something to hold on to. And here's one last excerpt for good measure:

"I've really surprised myself at self-marketing. It's come a lot more naturally to me than I thought it would."

God's Speed my friend, Tim Collie.

You are extremely talented, and I'm with you all the way.

 

 .    

Online Communities, Comments and Curmudgeons

A wicked combination I know, but before I tell you what each means to me individually, I will introduce myself. I'm Angela Connor.

I love what I do on many levels. Yes, there were times when I didn't necessarily love my job at several points in the past, but my love for journalism and the convergence of media has never waned. I received a Values Award in my previous position at a newspaper for "clearly communicating the growing need for multimedia content in today's fragmenting media marketplace." That's a direct quote.

The plaque is on my office wall here at WRAL.com in Raleigh, where I've been the Managing Editor for UGC since February, 2007. That's user-generated content for those of you who may have thought it was an acronym for ugly, gregarious curmudgeons. I wish I were the managing editor of them as well though, so I could put them all on a 30-day performance review.

This is my first blog here at Technolo-J, and if they'll allow me to stay, there will be many more to come.

Now, about online communities. I am an online community manager. I moved to Raleigh to manage and provide long-term vision and strategies for GOLO.com. We are in our second year and have more than 8,000 members. I communicate with those members often. I know a whole heck of a lot about the people in the community. One could even say I know too much. I planned a one-year birthday bash for the community a few weeks ago, held it at Starbucks and met people with names like Mohawkhb, Sue Donym, CottontownRambler, Cuzin Lukey and Tarheel Army Mom. I believe that local communities that are managed well and where the members are treated with respect can thrive and serve as an asset to traditional media organizations.   

Let's move on to comments. I supervise a team of moderators. These moderators decide which comments will be allowed on WRAL.com news stories. It's a challenge, but we set standards and make our expectations known. Our goal is to create an environment for civil discourse where our visitors can engage, debate, and even fight, as long as it's civil. I have no tolerance for those who say newspapers should abandon comments. No they shouldn't. They should manage them.

That leads me to this: Curmudgeons. I have commented on a number of blog posts recently about this very topic. Simply put, they are everywhere. Some of them fall under the radar, happily grumbling at their cubicles or in the corner of the break room wearing a fixed scowl. Others are quite verbal. They refer to 35 year-olds as "kids."  They hate the internet, and they may even still own a typewriter. They don't want their story scooped online, even if it's their own company's website and they think that bloggers are direct descendants of the Anti-Christ.

You know the type. If you know the type all too well and you see him or her in the mirror everyday, it's time to make a change. Resistance is futile. So, right here on the Technolo-J blog, I am opening up a new center called Curmudgeons Anonymous. The first step is admitting the problem.

You: Hi. My name is Curmudgeon, and  I'm a curmudgeon.

Me: Hiiii Curmudgeon.

Welcome. You're in for the ride of your life.

Welcome a new author to Technolo-J

Beginning this week, you'll see a new name posting here at Technolo-J.

Angela Connor is managing editor of user-generated content at WRAL.com in Raleigh, N.C., and also is editor of the online community GOLO -- "Go Local." Angela offers a unique perspective to this blog in building online communities and helping journalism transform into a two-way conversation with our audience.  I'm excited to have her here.

Help me welcome her.

Selling out the news?

Las Vegas TV station KWU apparently has decided to react to the drop in advertising dollars many news operations are experiencing by product placement on its newscasts.  Anchors recently delivered the news with iced coffees from a popular fast-food franchise on their desks.

As Angela Grant points out on News Videographer:

“In my opinion, this conflicts with several points in SPJ’s Code of Ethics “Act Independently” section:

·         Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.

·         Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.

·         Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.

Certainly pressures are building as news organizations adapt to the shift in the way our audiences want to receive the news. But this smacks of at least the appearance of advertisers influencing news content. This also points out  why it’s so important for  SPJ to continue to push ethics at this time of change. We need to maintain a watchdog approach and be vigilant to make sure the high standards we have set over the past century do not erode.

Super ideas to save election coverage

Elections are coming up.

Before you snore through another meeting about elections, read what Jack Lail and Scott Karp wrote about link journalism in the Neiman Reports, now online.

Some newsrooms still are living in old school molds of having the “scoop” – real “His Girl Friday” stuff from the 1920s.  But Lail and Karp make good arguments for why those notions can’t fly anymore.  But by helping readers navigate through all the voices on the web, our tradition as a trusted source may well save us.

Karp:

“This is not just a responsibility, it's an opportunity, for when journalists select the best of the Web's political coverage, they are able to uphold their standards of verifying and validating information. When newsrooms distribute what they find on the Web, they can maintain their relevance as a destination for people interested in politics by becoming a gateway to the best of all political coverage, not just their own."

In Knoxville, Lail and his folks put it to the test with great success:

“The idea was elegantly simple: supplement presidential campaign coverage with links to other content. …

…Here's what it took to make this happen:

·         Number of sit-down meetings: None.

·         Number of conference calls: None.

·         Number of contracts or releases: None.

·         From concept to execution: A couple of days."

So skip that meeting all together.

Keep stories short and let the data shine

I spent last week wading in data for our second biennial package "Judging the Judges."

It’s a survey I helped develop two years ago with our local bar association, getting lawyers to help evaluate judicial performance.  We also elect state judges in Wichita but rules on judicial ethics prevent candidates from campaigning or really saying much. So we also evaluate the performance of attorneys who are running for office, and it’s become an important guide for voters.

We started this, in part because special interest groups were doing their own evaluations and endorsements, and we wanted to provide a more objective tool.  No one knows judges better than the lawyers who face them.

I really works well on the web. From my spreadsheets, content producer Katie Lohrenz built an interactive feature allowing readers to compare scores between judges and candidates.  You can see, we kept the copy short, because the real star is the data.  We only had a week to prepare from the time we received the raw data until Sunday's publication.

It’s rated among our top web features so far, both Sunday and today.

A curmudgeon journalist gets inspired: a short subject

FADE IN: (After a busy week wrestling with a data project, RON is catching up on his reading, scratching his head like a curmudgeon. We hear the narration of his inner voice, resembling Woody Allen):

MERANDA WATLING wrote a post on her blog which reminded me why the news business will survive.

She commented on comments to a post by JESSICA DASILVA, another young firebrand of new journalism Now, I will comment on that.  (No, Meranda, you’re not the last blogger to write about it, I am.)

The passion both these young women show for journalism is exactly what has kept this curmudgeon going back to work for three-plus decades now.

RIPPLE FADE TO:

MERANDA:

“I am 22 and about as tech-savvy as an employer could possibly hope for their employee to be. And you know what? I LOVE my newspaper job. But I don’t love it because I am wedded to the idea of a printed product or because I long to wear fedoras or be Woodward and Bernstein or any of that. I don’t. I really really don’t. I rarely read the printed newspaper (my editor hates this), and I’d much rather be putting together an interactive graphic than sitting through a school board meeting.”

CUT TO

RON:

I did get into this business because of Woodward and Bernstein, and on occasion have donned a fedora (and look as dapper as Ryan Sholin). I also said this week in a news meeting

CUT TO Weekly staff meeting

RON (as reporters and editors nod off around the conference table): “We can’t cut staff and change the makeup in our newsrooms while continuing to cover the news the same way we have for the past 50 years.  That includes writing about every school board meeting.”

FADE TO: Tampa Tribune newsroom, where JESSICA hears editor JANET COATS say that despite doom surrounding pending layoffs, journalism is “Is worth fighting for.”

JESSICA:

“Out of all her quoteable moments, those were the words that stuck with me. It was that powerful statement that conveyed the hope, faith and prayers of all journalists worldwide. That maybe this industry can’t be demolished because of its importance and that maybe our love and passion for it could be enough to keep it running.

"Well, it’s going to take more than love and passion. That love and passion must move us to find solutions to keep our industry, our jobs and our identities alive and well.”

RON (laughing while reading comments of Jessica’s critics, who keep mentioning declining circulation of the print product, as if it makes their points, rather than hers): 

Can we agree that our audience is moving to the Web?  (Speaking very slowly for those who still don’t get it)  People are reading their news on their telephones -- as I do, as long as my old eyes will allow it. Meranda and Jessica get what many veterans don’t:  the means of delivering the news is changing.  The news isn’t.  Reporting isn’t.  The people who love news and reporting it aren’t. (He pauses, as he often does when writing, wondering if he’s making any sense to anyone but himself. Undaunted, he continues…).

Of course, we have to do our jobs differently than we have. But all we’re doing is what wire service reporters have done since the 19^th Century:  looking for faster ways to get the news out.  (Curmudgeonly allusion ahead) Our goal is no different than Edward G. Robinson in "Dispatch from Reuters" (1940).

That’s doesn’t mean our newsrooms will always be producing newspapers. And there will always be a need for news.

CUT TO

MERANDA:

“But they will need accurate, reliable news sources. And the skills I am learning working as a beat reporter are preparing me to be that source. It’s not perfect, for sure. Newspapers won’t ever regain their dominance. But I hate to see the best of the best being shooed away and told working for a newspaper is a death sentence. Trust me, journalism — democracy — needs those people not to flee too far from good old-fashioned community journalism and not to give up.”

(Background music swells with Gloria Gaynor's 1970s-era curmudgeon standard “I Will Survive” as we) FADE OUT

Good tips to read, remember and share with everyone in your newsroom

Good tips are worth remembering and repeating.

Here are some from Bill Dunphy of Web U (via Mindy McAdams)

1. Are there original documents you can link to?
2. Are there any photographs (related videos, sound files, slideshows)?
3. Can you map it?
4. Can you gather past stories together and link to them?
5. Can you post the audio or video of an interview or a performance or a meeting?
6. Can you direct readers to an authoritative (external) site for more info?
7. Can you invite comment or start a conversation?

Dunphy has good descriptions and explanations to go with each, like finding photos:

"You don't have to own a file to share it with your audience. Need a photo of a coffee-addicted dog for a story on off-leash dog parks? Go to Flickr's creative commons site  and search for what you need."

 Easy and entertaining.

A murder caught on video, reported in multimedia

I picked this up and realized I hadn’t blogged in almost a month.  Part of it is the intense energy I bring to work every day.  I’m sapped by the end of the day, running my the work blog on courts, trying to complete the enterprise projects and keep up with multimedia, which in recent weeks has meant looking at death.

I see death regularly.  I cover murder trials.  But rarely do I get to see it.  Until last week.

Often, I’ve heard prosecutors explain to jurors about circumstantial evidence. “I don’t have a video of the crime,” they will say, “but you can still look at the evidence and tell what happened can’t you?”

In the trial of Cherish McCullough the jury, and I, saw a killing. And in the era of multimedia, we could share it online.

McCullough was 19 years old when charged with killing a 27-year-old woman in a Wichita convenience store.  The store had 15 security cameras, which caught the crime from every angle.  I plugged my small Canon into the video pool, and we recorded what the jury saw.  Then we posted it online.  Well, parts of it. You might want to read until the end before you decide to click on the links below.

First, there was the fistfight between the women.  That was played on the first day of the trial. After the fight, McCullough left the store.  Everyone thought the fight was over, until she returned and stabbed LaShonda Callaway.

Not too long ago, only television news would have been able to replay it. Across our city, editorial discussions were going on in newsrooms.  What do we show, just because we can? We didn’t show the stabbing.  There was another view that caught it on camera.  It was quick.  Callaway seemed to be unaware she was stabbed, until she collapsed.  What our audience saw only hinted at what happened.

I tell myself, we showed what we did, because it showed the overwhelming evidence against McCullough, and why the jury eventually took only an hour to convict her. And not just because we can.  I hope we did the right thing.

The video we didn’t show was brutal. I’m still having nightmares about it.

Listen and learn: lessons on blogging, Twitter and covering the news live

I listened to the podcast the Guardian posted the other day on The Future of Journalism: Blogging, Twittering and Live Video. 

Fascinating and thought-provoking, it's 87 minutes long, so download it to your IPod and take it with you to the gym/ Or just make time to listen. I'm going to count it as the training hours for this year.

A few highlights:

• Dave Hill, writer for the Guardian, said there was "sort of mischief element" as he covered a mayoral race on Twitter.  People get to see the news-making and reporting process in its rawest form.” Part of the fun of it for me is the demystification of serious journalism, if you like," he said.
• Anna Pickard said when she began live blogging television shows such as "Big Brother" and "The Apprentice" people began sitting in front of their TV's with their laptops, responding to her posts. “Conversation is the best thing about the Internet, I think," she said. “...It’s introducing this idea of simultaneous multimedia. Everyone is taking everything in and splurging at the same time.”
• Andy Carvin of NPR called Twitter: “a conversation you keep in your pocket” and "the quintessential American diner."

They also talk about workflow and problems they experienced. These all illustrate my experiences when I was covering the murder trial on Twitter, only they explain it much more eloquently.

Now I'm blogging as part of the my job

My beat is in a courthouse, a building where human drama plays out in some form every day.  In eight years of covering courts, I'd often hear of interesting stories that wouldn't fit into what I was working on that day, or just didn't have a place for one reason or the other in the paper.

But I've found a home for those stories in the new courts blog the Eagle launched this week.  We call it "What the Judge Ate for Breakfast," after a well-known courthouse saying. It actually as an interesting origin, which we explained in the "about" section. Actually, one of the most difficult parts was researching the origin, which took the help of the University of Kansas Law School Library, to find the exact quote.

Now, I blog as a part of my job.  We also put my Twitter feed in the navigation, so I can continue to file microblogs from the courthouse.  Some of the posts publish to the blog first, and then developed into full stories for the newspaper.  Others update stories that we didn't run in the print edition.  It's a combination of original reporting from our courthouse and links to legal and crime trend stories from elsewhere.

So far, I've gotten good feedback from judges and lawyers.  We'll see if we can get the crime and courts news junkies from the public interested.

What I learned about crime reporting via Twitter

The Twitter trial was exhausting.

But the response was worth it.  That’s what I’ve found is usually true in this business. The most difficult reporting brings the best rewards.

I had to take a week’s vacation after the capital murder trial of Ted Burnett just to rest up and refuel.  After weeks of microblogging details of the brutal death of a 14-year-old girl, I didn’t have much left to even keep this blog up.  But thanks to all those who followed my coverage on Twitter and those who may patiently return to this blog to learn what happened, from a journalist’s standpoint.  You all keep me going.

Here’s some of the feedback I received from readers:

• “I’m addicted …”
  
  
• “I found myself checking in a couple of times per day just to read your postings.  Due to my schedule, I do not always get to spend time each morning reading the paper and rely on online news during the day.”
  
  
• “This was yet another great use for 2.0 tools!”
  
  
• “I very much wanted to follow the trial and when I came across your Twitter page I was delighted.  I thought at first it might be annoying to have to continually refresh the page to get updates, but found I could easily get work done and come back every 10 minutes or so and read through your updates.”
  
  
• “I loved being able to press the refresh button on my browser every minute for new ‘tweets.’ While I am emotionally involved in this case, I was not able to take a week off work and join my family friends in the courtroom. With twitter I am able to virtually be in the court room and know all of the little details that I had not previously known about.”

 
I had started using Twitter during jury selection, as a solution to some problems we’d had with trying to file live updates during the trial. We wanted immediacy, and we got it.

One day, I cut and pasted all my “tweet” updates into a traditional story file.  It measured 80 inches.  Now, I don’t think anyone would have read an 80-inch story from the newspaper on this trial, as compelling as it was. My editors certainly wouldn’t have run a story that long.  But what I found is that people will read an 80-inch story, given to them a paragraph at a time, 140 characters long.

In addition to Twitter, I also produced multimedia:  audio slide show such as this one of a co-conspirator explaining the killing of Chelsea Brooks.

Between the text descriptions from the courtroom over Twitter, and the multimedia, we were able to give people a feeling of being there that I had never before been able to do in my career.  This trial had a “press room” in the law library of an adjoining courtroom. 

I kept a Macbook Pro in there with Soundslides and Audacity, so I could edit audio files and organize photos on breaks.  I had the photographer on duty download photos to a memory stick I wore around my neck. That saved time.  Most days I was able to complete everything - including writing a story for the morning newspaper - at a decent hour.  The tweets during the day were really my notes that I used to fashion the newspaper story.

It wasn’t perfect.  I had my share of typos, filing live with no copy desk backup.  But no one complained about the occasional misspellings. 

Twitter had outages, sometimes during the most dramatic parts the trial.

Here are some lessons I learned that may help other reporters wanting to “tweet” live events:

• Keep a “cheat sheet” handy of key dates, addresses and names of those involved.  It will save time to keep looking them up in your notes.
  
  
• Don’t assume anything.  If you’re not sure you totally understand what you’re hearing, save that information until you can ask for further explanations.
  
  
• Remember, it’s easier for people to follow narrative stories.  Try to establish what the story is and filter information so that it fits within the storyline.  This was easy in a trial, because certain witnesses were there to tell what happened.  Other parts weren’t as easy, such as forensic evidence. With that, I had to work harder to maintain a story that wouldn’t lose people.
  
  
• When the event takes a break, tell people.  I always added a tweet that said “court is in recess for 15 minutes,” so readers wouldn’t keep refreshing the page, hoping to find information.
  
  
• Pay attention to the environment around you.  Don’t just report what people say.  Look for reactions and moods. 

• You will catch mistakes, most of which you’ll notice right as you hit “send.”  File corrections immediately and mark them as such.  It will keep your readers’ trust.

• Make time to rest, especially if it’s going to be an event such as a trial that lasts for days, even weeks.  You will be exhausted.

 
You may even find Twitter improves your writing.  When you have to stay within 140 characters, you're forced to write tight.

Update:  We got a big morale boost during the trial from the American Bar Association, which contacted us for this article in ABA On-Line Journal. The article gave us immediate credability with judges and lawyers around the courthouse, which will probably help us continue using this tool.

Making responsible journalists out of citizens

SPJ often gets mistakenly tagged as old school, a bunch of old print guys reminiscing over the days of manual typewriters.  The reality is, SPJ is embracing the future. 

The newest example is our Citizen Journalism Academy.  The first drew about small crowd of 25 in Chicago last weekend.  The crowd was small, but SPJ executive director Terry Harper those who attended gave the programming high marks.  Here’s how the Chicago Tribune reported it.

The point is to train the growing numbers of folks contributing to online projects about ethical and responsible journalism.

The next CJA is in June 7 in Greenboro, N.C.

If you know any budding citizen journalists, bloggers or others, tell them to check it out.  Maybe try to bring it to your town on the next go-around.

Get more information here.