Making it easier to get the news

[Kevin Dugan]

Right now folks like the Enquirer are sending out videographers to do quick stories and cover visual news that the stations would not pick up. But we all seem to agree that engaging readers to send in vids and pictures from the scene is more affordable and more probable to be successful.

But I've been playing around with publishing tools like twitter for text, twitpic for images and utterz for audio (both twitpic and utterz push to twitter and now it looks like twitterfone does same). This makes me wonder if the news sites shouldn't engage their audience across more than just email, pic and video. Sound bytes give them a travelling story corps (with apologies to the sweet NPR airstream parked outside Union Terminal for the next week or so). A picture is worth a thousand words, but pushing it out via twitter makes it all the more likely it will get some reaction.

I just think that as content is redefined into smaller pieces, 140 characters etc, the newsroom of the future should capitalize on this and offer these tools to their readers.

[Kevin Dugan]

THIS is the kind of thing news outlets should be spending more money on: Via @robertscoble: How is news photography changing? Panoramic picture of China quake: http://tinyurl.com/4j2ckv

[Kevin Dugan]

OK Des Moines Register is tweeting the Obama speech tonight. Obviously they would be there anyway, but I hope to heck they're pushing this feed to their site. Otherwise....opportunity lost.

http://twitter.com/DMRegister

[Brad King]

This is a really interesting point -- one that I'm not sure where I fall on. Twitter at least feels interactive to me.

The question that swims in my head, primarily because I'm not smart enough to grasp truly what is next is this: if it's just telling a story, what's wrong with text, video and audio.

Those are old traditions (text and audio are anyway). They work well.

Twitter at least adds something new to the mix. The conversation. I'm not sure if sending a photographer out to get snippets here and there adds anything.

Sure, it'll get page views -- until the next interesting thing comes along. Is that sustainable? Ultimately, I don't think it is. Raw data is just that -- and people get bored with it. Raw data with context and conversation seems sustainable.

What does that look like? I don't know just yet.

[Casey Cora]

All good points. And they all go back to what Brad has said about embracing the medium for what in can do, not what the newspaper does. (Well, that, and the crippling speed of what passes for innovation at newspaper companies.)

Here's a couple thoughts:

1.) 360 panoramas are fantastic. There's nothing award-winningly photojournalistic about them, but it's hard to argue that it puts the viewer "there." Like the earthquake. That's amazing.

2.) I think the resistance to Twitter stems from this: most reporters don't want to think, much less write, in 140-character bursts. I'm not an anti-Twitter snob, but I think that's a valid point.

Still, it should all be about making it easier for our customers, consumers, readers, voting public, whatever, to get the news. We should paste that on our bosses foreheads.

[Brad King]

I was never a fan of panoramic pictures, but for some reason they've grown on me. I don't know what that means.

It feels, though, like they could do something more with them. I don't know what that is -- a common theme of mine in this thread. But I agree that they are very cool, particularly for this type of story.

As for Twitter, I am still not sure I can see a benefit for that with current media structures. You can't just throw up Twitter and see what happens because I'd bet that most new organizations don't have that many Twitter followers.

Of course, there's only one way to find out.

Most papers don't have a community manager, though, so it's likely the job would fall to a reporter or copy editor who, for a short time, would stay interested before moving on to something else.

[Kevin Dugan]

Panoramic pics, like any technology, have their place. I think communicating the sheer enormity of the earthquake aftermath is best done using panaoramic.

On journos using twitter. I reluctantly provide a link below to a wiki that tracks this kind of thing. I only say reluctantly because, as a PR guy, I HATE list mentality like this.


Someone out there is sure to take this list, load it into twitter and start sending 140 characters of crap to all of them.

Which gets me to another pre-coffee rant. It bugs me how everyone gets caught up in format over content. If I send you news...a real story lead. Does it matter WHAT format it's in? \

Conversely, when I hear people like Stowe Boyd say, only pitch me in Twitter. Or Tom Foremski say, only pitch me via Facebook I laugh. It's all about those being clean channels for them and trying to filter out the spam. Whether it's 140 characters or a 1,000 word news release, if it's crap, it's crap.



https://twitteringjournalists.pbwiki.com/

[Brad King]

I get accused of this at times -- unfairly, I think, but to the point that I clearly am not clear about what I am saying.

Anyone who locks themselves into one format is just asking for trouble. Whether it's a phone call, a fax, an email, a tweet or a drink, information should find you how it finds you.

I have 7 instant messenger programs running, 4 email accounts, a cell phone with texting, RSS feeds up the wazoo, Twitter and this network all running all day long.

To Cynthia's point (from my proposal), that's why I need software agents to parse through the data. There's no way for me to keep up.

Google Reader, XOBNI for Outlook (use it, you'll see), Tweetscan when I needed it. Those three filters allow me to find and process data much quicker than I could otherwise, without feeling overwhelmed by the mass.

It also enables me to tell you to send the info you want in any manner you would like.

I'm no Scoble, but agents free us from being locked in.