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TV newsrooms a-twitter
Posted By katie allison granju
From Shoptalk today.
…let’s say a reporter is doing a story on new highway construction and their key interview just cancelled. Imagine if you could instantly tap the brains of every person in the newsroom, no matter where they are throughout the city. They post, “My interview just cancelled, I need an expert on road construction.”
Social networking exponentially amplifies the rolodex of every person in the newsroom. By utilizing mobile based networks like Twitter and Pownce, we solve one of the fundamental problems of news gathering – communicating with co-workers who are spread all over the city.
We also provide a vehicle for our audience to join in on the reporting process. We enroll them in the creation and investigation of great stories. We ask for their help through personal experiences, contacts, or other resources we don’t know about. We turn them into on-line participants, not just passive viewers.
We’ve always done this on a linear scale. We call up people on the phone to ask for an interview. Now we can ask thousands of people simultaneously, and reach them no matter what their location. The audience becomes a participant in a journey of discovery with the reporter leading the charge. These new social networking tools bring community-based reporting to a whole new level.
Please feel free to sign up for my Knoxville Talks Twitter feed. I promise not to bombard you.
May 12th, 2008
