For Samford Crimson journalists

Paul Bradshaw gives us plenty to think about when it comes to using social media in the practice of our journalism. He finds there is a small amount of extra work, but a worthwhile reward.

As journalists we used to be active in seeking those people out – and we used reliable, often official, channels to do that, meaning we were often too reliant on particular sources. Now sources are increasingly coming to us and the work is in making ourselves visible, accessible and trustworthy; and in filtering and verifying the information they provide.

That’s not ‘more passive’ journalism, it’s getting out of your silos and making contact; it’s moving from being a conduit to a stimulator. It’s moving from a linear production process to a networked one, and too few journalists are doing it.

The feedback, the better angles and the better reporting you can produce will be worth the effort. Doing so will also help you build a better brand for your newsroom and for yourself as a journalist.

Anil Dash writes about how Six Apart could help journalists now swimming through uncharted waters. That little blog post is turning into an interesting enterprise because of passion for the craft:

A lot of people are thinking about how journalism is going to evolve online, and many people are passionate about making sure journalists make the leap.

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Overall, there’s an optimism which indicates that having a starting point to do something proactive and positive will be a great first step for many journalists to take control of their careers in an industry that is going through enormous upheaval.

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The TypePad Journalist Bailout Program is not a silver bullet. It’s not going to singlehandedly preserve the career and income of every working journalist who has a job today. And frankly, the response has been so overwhelming that we won’t be able to accept every application at first.

But what we can do is give journalists the tools to take control of their own presence online. This program will let a lot of the most eager writers and reporters learn the ropes about how to be more effective and successful on the web.

What we’re all going to be in the future is one-part journalist and one part marketer. There’s no better place — plenty of tools, low barrier of entry and an immense network — than the internet.

And you’re using many of the available tools already. Facebook, Flickr, blogs, personal websites, Twitter and more can be used for much more than just chatting with friends and broadcasting personal pictures. Think about putting those instruments together in such a way to help you get the next big job, build professional credibility, land a big scoop, listen to a community of sources and more …

This is cool stuff.

Spot.Us is a “marketplace where independent reporters, community members and news organizations can come together and collaborate.”

The work of reporters, tipsters and others pioneers “community funded reporting” on “important and perhaps overlooked stories.”

Want to contribute? Here’s the FAQ for reporters.

Students watch Sen. Barack Obama's speech.

While Sen. Barack Obama was on stage turning into the president-elect The Samford Crimson newsroom was covering the event locally.

Just a few minutes after he walked off the stage the Email alert was shipped out and a story was uploaded that included a photograph, seven paragraphs and three quotes in a nice team effort that helped capture Samford’s slice of an historical moment.

Nice job!

We’re going to soon be talking about this a lot. We’ll discuss ways that we can think beyond the newspaper paradigm and how we can use the tools already in place to help you develop audiences, cultivate brands and how that will ultimately help your portfolio.

One such little idea is by using Twitter. Here’s a post from Amy Gahran about Twitter for journalists:

Twitter can be quite an effective radar screen for news or relevant issues.

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Twitter can help you engage people on a personal level, and to demonstrate your interest in them. This is something that, IMHO, many journalists resist — but that can benefit journos and their work significantly once they loosen up about acting like human beings in a public venue.

Twitter is going mainstream now. Early this year I started the Twitter stream at al.com. In a matter of days we had more than a hundred followers — when few people around here were on the service. In the first week we broke two big fire stories via Twitter …

Gahran’s also got tips for how you can get started — which I’d encourage you to do. I’d also encourage you to follow (to follow is to friend if you’re in a Facebook frame of mind) relatively talkative people. Follow those who fall into your interests and they’ll tip you off to ideas and great new things.

Also follow a few people of different and varied interests, just to get a nice slice of the conversation.

You can follow me too, if you like.