Journalists Scanning Social Media for Stories - New Tools Being Developed

[C. Flower]

There has been quite a bit of knocking of social media by journalists and media owners in the last year.

There other side of the story of the relations between professional news media and social media - journalists are busy scanning social media for stories, and for reaction to stories. This is good, as it is an additional resource for news reporting -, and would be even better if they would kindly remember to give credit to their sources.

This report is on a "social sensor" being developed, to enable journalists to
scan social medial more efficiently.

http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/soc...eb/s2/a550362/

[fluffybiscuits]

There has been quite a bit of knocking of social media by journalists and media owners in the last year.

There other side of the story of the relations between professional news media and social media - journalists are busy scanning social media for stories, and for reaction to stories. This is good, as it is an additional resource for news reporting -, and would be even better if they would kindly remember to give credit to their sources.

This report is on a "social sensor" being developed, to enable journalists to
scan social medial more efficiently.

http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/soc...eb/s2/a550362/

Good article. In the modern sense a lot of news I get sometimes comes through facebook but the vast majority of stuff I have found out has come via twitter. People post a link and a quick synopsis of a subject with the hashtags that identify what the topic is about. There is a rake of info out there on everything from Shell to Sea to human rights abuses to what is happening in Libya direct from the horses mouth. Eg your coverage CF from Tahir Square, while I joined the debate late was invaluable and provided a valuable resource to us here and Im sure others. My blog has got a great many hits on people looking for info (in particular gay rights in Russia and Vicky Cahill, Martin Cahills niece which seem to be the most popular articles for some reason!). Blogs are another source, using googel news etc.

[Kid Ryder]

There has been quite a bit of knocking of social media by journalists and media owners in the last year.

There other side of the story of the relations between professional news media and social media - journalists are busy scanning social media for stories, and for reaction to stories. This is good, as it is an additional resource for news reporting -, and would be even better if they would kindly remember to give credit to their sources.

This report is on a "social sensor" being developed, to enable journalists to
scan social medial more efficiently.

http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/soc...eb/s2/a550362/

In so many ways, it's an old story. Churnalists scabbing off the web goes back at least to the founding days of Indymedia Ireland, when stories would be lifted from it wholesale, with the minimum of syntactic jiggling required to defeat accusations of 'plagiarism!'. Then in the next article, the lazy churnalist's stablemate would wax indignantly about 'Windymedia' and claim its continuing existence would lead to the end of 'truth in the news', and all without a titter of irony. Preaching water and drinking wine has been part of the Oireland Inc. repertoire since long before the current bout of 'austerity'.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

All Ur Internetz R Urz.

Well at least we can look forward to a rise in standards in the print media. Could be funny that- imagine the scanning tool adjusted for the Irish Times and the Independent and the filters they'd use:

'Exclude any stories on people with more money than the Editor+any stories providing negative coverage of the IFSC+Include all positive comment on IBEC+Exclude any stories on members of the media and where they are in helping Gardai with enquiries+stories mentioning Rosanna Davidsons tits+exclude any stories actually showing Rosana Davidson's tits+exclude any mention of ruling party leader's drink related indiscretions+never mention Terry 'Stallone' Prone...

[fluffybiscuits]

All Ur Internetz R Urz.

Well at least we can look forward to a rise in standards in the print media. Could be funny that- imagine the scanning tool adjusted for the Irish Times and the Independent and the filters they'd use:

'Exclude any stories on people with more money than the Editor+any stories providing negative coverage of the IFSC+Include all positive comment on IBEC+Exclude any stories on members of the media and where they are in helping Gardai with enquiries+stories mentioning Rosanna Davidsons tits+exclude any stories actually showing Rosana Davidson's tits+exclude any mention of ruling party leader's drink related indiscretions+never mention Terry 'Stallone' Prone...

Have you seen the Herald? Its forty pages of crap abouot gangland, court reports and then there is the Herald Diary which shows pictures of dolly birds whom we are lead to believe are 'celebreties' then turn to the sports section of forty pages of GAA, a dollop of football coverage about Man Yooo and Celtic and then you line your budgies cage with it....I need a cuppa tea after that rant!

[Kid Ryder]

The concept of 'filtering' sources and applying a hierarchy of 'useability' to them is already done to more traditional sources, like press statements etc. From my own experience, this will mean in future that churnalists will treat claims made on Royal Dutch Shell's Twitter account with more respect than ones made on Shell To Sea's one, and it will be a software feature. No need to agonise over the facts being traduced, just get with the Oireland Inc. program v.4.11. New filtering tools to be sure, but applying the same old filtering criteria.