How a teenager's tweet turned on our newsroom to Storify

When I first began this journey into multimedia journalism, I wanted to use a combination of text and video to tell stories. My goal was to create a text story that would replace printed quotes with videos, so people could actually watch and hear soundbites from courtroom testimony, attorney arguments or judges' rulings.

I never got around to it, for one because it was too time consuming, and I would have to include the quotes anyway for print versions. But I still thought there would be a way to take multimedia content and put them together to tell a story.

Storify came along and solved those problems. Developed with the help of a former AP reporter, Storify was created for journalists by journalists. You take content from the web, via Twitter, YouTube, Flickr or other social media sites, and place it on a timeline. Storify gives you text boxes to write headlines, a lede and transitions. As with any story, the reporter drives the narrative. The quotes are taken from real-time social media. You can even make embeds of specific URLs.

The perfect story hit our newsroom recently, when the office of the Kansas governor impulsively reacted to a critical tweet from a high school senior. The story exploded.

The day after my colleague Suzanne Tobias broke the story, I mentioned that it would be perfect for Storify. She had never used it before, so I gave her a quick walk-through. Within minutes she was building her Storify account that truly captured the reaction happening across the Twitterverse. It would end up nominated for Storify's Story of the Year, along side stories about arrests at the Occupy protests and the chronicling of uprisings across the Middle East.

I had been using Storify to document community reaction throughout the year spurred by our coverage of sex trafficking in Wichita.

The Storify timeline is simple. You search for content in a panel on the right side of your screen, then when you find what you want you drag and drop it into the timeline at left. Hit "publish." You can then grab the embed code, as you would for a video, and drop into a blog post or a story file for your web site. If you look at the metrics on Suzanne's storify, you'll see most came from the embed from Kansas.com.

Tip: It will save you a lot of time if you identify your story early and begin grabbing tweets or other content. Storify search only goes back a day or two. I began the story related to our human trafficking project months ago, grabbing key bits throughout the year, even though I didn't publish the final product until last month.

Although Storify has a place to pull content off Facebook, I've found that to be difficult and kind of clunky, probably because of various privacy settings.

There's now even a Word Press Storify plug-in that works from directly from the dashboard.

If you're not using it, you're missing out on a valuable tool for online journalism, and an simple way to turn tweets, blog posts and other web content into a cohesive, long-form narrative.

Hot links: the journalism sessions I couldn't attend in Vegas

NO PLACE LIKE HOME, KS -- The SPJ Convention has been over for days but people are still talking and blogging about what they learned. And we can catch up on the sessions we missed.

Among them:

• Deb Wenger reports on a talk by CNN International's Etan Horowitz: Used to be, broadcasters tried to put TV on the web. Now they put social media on the air.
• Wenger also adds info on Victor Hernandez’s sessions on all-platform journalists, with a list for gearheads like me.
• Libbi Gordon of the University of Missouri sums up her analysis of the convention: "To the youth and young adult market, using the Internet and social media is second nature. YAYAs will thrive in the online journalism."
• No journalism convention would be complete without talk of layoffs of downsizing, and Tim Eigo, editor of Arizona Attorney magazine, reports on a conspicuously empty Gannett booth at the trade show: "Is that angst in your pocket, or are you just sorry to see me?"
• Marnie Kunz writes: "Matt Villano offered helpful advice on diversifying for freelancers and not keeping your eggs in one basket ... . And it soothed my frazzled soul."
• Amanda Maurer reviews Google 101 for Journalists: the session everyone who missed it wished they'd attended.
• And Vince Duffy of Michigan NPR and the most dapper man in radio, blogs highlights of the convention for the RTNDA, which will team with SPJ for next year's convention in New Orleans.

Did you attend a session or blog about the convention?  Leave details or a link to your post in the comments.

Journalists' signal to noise ratio for Twitter

LAS VEGAS -- Even as Twitter becomes more popular among journalists, a lot of people still have problems figuring out just how they should use it. Some insist on posting only links and pushing out information, not engaging in the conversation. Others have questions about including both professional and personal information. In his session this morning on social engagement for journalists at the SPJ National Convention, Jeff Cutler described his 70/30 ratio.



Also get Jeff's complete notes on the session (pdf).

Ways to use Tumblr for journalism

I signed up for Tumblr about the same time I signed up for Twitter three years ago. But basically I’ve just used the tumblelog for personal musings.

It’s another great platform for microblogging, including photos, videos and short text posts, and people can comment quickly, “liking” your post, as on Facebook, or “reblogging” it to others.

Now, Chris Cameron reports, larger news outlets are turning to Tumblr, too.

I like what the New Yorker is doing.

Life is posting what it does best, photographs, including updating the stories behind some of its classics. Elle is posting fashion shots off the runway and off the streets.

Others have created tumblelogs but don’t have any content. Can't wait to see what Rolling Stone does.

It’ll be interesting to follow these and see how Tumblr can fit into our personal role as reporters.

For more details and links, check out Business Insider’s report.

(Via Kevin O’Keefe on Twitter)

Why I love my Twitter followers

I’ve been drawing a paycheck as a journalist for 33 years now, and for all of the past three I never knew if anyone really read anything I’d reported unless they were angry.

That changed the past three years, when I began reporting via Twitter.

Until then, the only feedback journalists got were usually a letter to the editor or a short, terse phone call. Over the phone, you could hear them screaming. It usually took a special kind of anger to make someone sit down and write, in detail, why they hated me and my future spawn, because they disagreed with something I’d written.

In those days, journalists rarely heard from anyone unless they were hacked off. Occasionally, a colleague, or someone you knew, might say they liked something you wrote. But mostly, it was readers and editors telling you what you did wrong.

Twitter changed everything. I’ve gotten more encouragement and support on during the past three years on Twitter than in the past three decades before that.

I’m not the only one. Tom Jolly, sports editor of the New York Times, has found a similar experience. We met at the New York Press Association Convention, where he spoke on how the Times uses social media.

“The conversations on Twitter tend to be more civil,” Jolly said. “There’s a lot less of the ‘You’re an idiot’ type of posts. And that’s not always true of conversations elsewhere on the web.”

Part of it, I think, is that people on Twitter choose to follow what I do, rather than just having it thrown on their doorstep. Online journalism gives people more choices, and they can pick where they want to receive their information as never before.

Also, social networks like Twitter allows journalists to connect with their community as never before. This is one reason I advocate for keeping one Twitter account for both professional and personal use. I received some chiding by some folks who had followed me for the Roeder trial that they didn’t realize they’d also get such detail on weekends from Kansas-based basketball teams. Or when my kids wreck the car, or when I have knee surgery.

But these details have helped people get to know me. They know I’m more than a byline on a page, and I think knowing me personally will help them determine whether they want to keep getting information from me. It’s helped bring me closer to crime victims who I cover. I’ve made friends on Twitter, some of whom have become close personal friends. Others make me laugh, and we talk, even though we may never have met.

And the comments I get on Twitter are usually more thoughtful, and less confrontational, than the anonymous reader comments left on news web sites.

That’s one reason that after a busy day in court, or the end of the big trial, I try to remember to thank everyone who follows me. It’s not something I do because I think I should. I really appreciate everyone who chooses to listen to the stories I tell. And I always ask for criticism, because I do want to know how to do my job better. Usually, responses come in the form of suggestions, and those have helped me pace my tweets better during a busy part of a trial, give background, and link to other sources.

I do love my Twitter followers. And I take much more from them than what I may put out in the course of my daily news coverage. After 30 years of hearing little more than criticism and insults, the more congenial atmosphere of Twitter has helped given me a much brighter outlook on being a journalist. For that, I thank them.

Banned in Baltimore: Some thoughts on social media and a free press

I’ve been getting phones calls lately asking what I think about the decision by a Baltimore judge to ban cell phones and social networking from the courtroom.

As I recently told a reporter from the Baltimore Sun, Twitter and other social networks have broadened public access trials, and that’s a good thing.
More people now are getting their news on their cell phones, and they’re getting it instantaneously.

Earlier this month Facebook became the fourth largest distributor of online news content. Many people are getting their news directly from sites such as Twitter. I often receive replies from my Twitter followers telling me they're following trials I cover exclusively there.

Courts and the press have been at odds in the past, and the U.S. Supreme Court has said the First Amendment should be weighed properly with the rights of a fair trial, but court proceedings are presumed open. During 10 years of covering courts, I've learned the press rarely gets in the way.

Our lawyer tells me a criminal case has never been reversed in Kansas because of a press issue. Cases do, however, regularly get reversed because of mistakes by judges, jurors and lawyers.

I’ve been asked several times what the Baltimore decision means for other courts across the U.S. My answer is: I hope not much.

Just as some courts allow cameras, while others – such as Baltimore and New York – don’t, courts should be independent in deciding about social media. Reporters using laptops and their cell phones in court should do so without disrupting the proceedings. Judges should remember to order jurors to stay off the Internet when they remind them not to follow traditional press coverage or do independent research.

More judges need to stay as plugged in as our judges in Kansas, including a federal judge here who is still hearing cases at age 102, and is an active online user.

I was asked last summer to speak at the judicial conference of the ABA National Convention about the use of social media in covering courts. I think as more judges learn how prevalent social media has become, and its value in delivering news, they’ll understand that limiting its use is limiting a free press. And there’s really no justice in that

Pushing Twitter trial coverage a step forward: federal court

In less than a year, covering trials via Twitter has gone from an experiment to one of my regular reporting tools. With each new trial, I've gained about 100 followers - both locally and even from other countries - and that doesn't count the people who watch it from our news web site or on my work blog.

The reaction has been stunning at times.  Other news sites, notably the Orange County Register, has also picked up on this kind of coverage for the courts.

But this week brought a giant step forward when a federal judge in Wichita gave the go-aheadfor me to use Twitter there.  I don't know if it's a first, as some of the legal bloggers think, but it is a big step in expanding live coverage of the courts.

See, federal courts don't allow cameras or video or audio recorders.  The federal courthouse in Wichita doesn't allow cell phones, so I had to get the judge's permission to bring my smartphone and Bluetooth keyboard into the courtroom.

The trial, which begins testimony Monday, surrounds federal charges of racketeering aimed at accused members of the Crips street gang.  Federal prosecutors around the country have used racketeering laws for years to try and curb the problem of street gangs.

But to see these trials, you had to go to the courthouse. Twitter will allow people to follow the trial in real time and learn more about federal courts and how they work.

Follow the trial next week. After it's over, I'll report back with an update on what I learned in this new venue.

The rise of social media and the demise of newspapers

I remember a kind of panic going through the newspaper industry -- around 1989.

Young people weren't reading newspapers, and there was a great amount of money being spent trying to figure out how to change that.

"How are we going to get the next generation to read the newspaper?" publishers asked.  They spent a lot of money making youth-oriented sections for newspapers that went unread.

Now we know the answer to that question: We're not.  But we were asking the wrong question.  The question should have been: How are we going to get information to the next generation?  If we'd asked that in 1989, someone in the news industry might have developed Facebook, MySpace or Twitter.  Instead, journalists are left to catch up with social networking -- the tool that's being used to pass information.

To succeed in that arena we have to be social.  Patrick Thornton guides us with on Beatblogging.org dealing with how have have to stop hiding behind bylines and put ourselves out there.

“I don’t think social media will really work for journalists, unless we are willing to share a little bit about ourselves and our personalities,” Thornton quotes journalism professor Carrie Brown from a video.

Meanwhile, newspapers may be disappearing faster than we can Twitter about it.  Editor & Publisher blogger Mark Fitzgerald says we could begin seeing the first cities beginning to lose their newspapers next year, according to the Fitch Ratings service.

"Fitch believes more newspapers and newspaper groups will default, be shut down and be liquidated in 2009 and several cities could go without a daily print newspaper by 2010," the credit ratings firm said in a report on the outlook for U.S. media and entertainment.

Journalists' should make sure their voices are heard in community conversations

I'm catching up on reading, and blogging, after knee surgery. Still a little loopy on the pain meds, but I'll see if I can patch together some coherent sentences.

I watched this video interview with social media guru Howard Rheingold. He's talking about libraries here, but what he says about their mission is much the same, I believe, as journalists.

Journalism is more than a TV clip or newspaper article.  It's passing along reliable information:  seeking the truth and reporting it.  But as the availability of information expands, as Howard says, we are competing for attention with all the porn and scams and everything else.

It's our job to help make sure people can find our reliable information.  These days, we can do that by understanding social networking on all levels, and how people are using this to pass along information.  So if people in your colleagues aren't spending a lot of their time using social networking to build sources and as conduits for reporting that information, then encourage them to start.

I especially like how Howard talks about people looking for reliable information within their specific interests.  A challenge of every major news web site has been making the transition from general interest publications to making information easy to find within the details of our readers' lives.

That's the point Amy Gahran makes in her Poynter E-Media Tidbits this week. The days of editors sitting in a room and deciding what everyone else reads or hears is ending, if it's not already over.

"In other words, to stop trying to shove unwanted "messages" down people's throats, and to actually talk with and listen to real people," Amy says

Amy linked to a useful presentation of the 1999 Cluetrain Manifesto.  Written for marketing and PR folks, there's also a warning for the journalism business that it is only now beginning to heed, a decade later.  It deals with the way people talk to each other, compared with the sometimes stilted way the media presents information. Social networking is now making it easier for larger groups to hold those informal discussions.  These groups were formerly known as the newspaper and broadcast news media markets.

Social networking is about participating in a community conversation.  As journalists, part of our role is to provide trustworthy information to those conversations. You can either participate, or be left out.  Too often, journalists are choosing to be left out.

If you know colleagues who aren't usuing social networking as a major part of their work days, or don't know how, encourage them. If they don't understand why they need to learn about it, show them this video.  Show them the slide presentation.  Maybe that will get through to them.

Talking Twitter with BeatBlogger about microblogging the news

Patrick Thornton of Beatblogging.org called last week to talk about how I use Twitter to cover trials.

It resulted in this post and podcast.

Also look up Patrick on Twitter @jionoclast.