E-Media Tidbits

Between 2000 and 2005, newspapers were slow to adopt blogging. Now every news outlet seems to have blogs. Today we're seeing a similar uptake trend with other forms of social media, particularly Twitter. While other social networks like Facebook and Ning have their uses for journalists, a consensus seems to be building that Twitter offers journalists an easy way to connect with members of the local community.

For a 10-week online course for Poynter's NewsU (including two upcoming public Webinars), I've begun to collect examples of how newsrooms are starting to use social media. Paul Gillin, Michele McLellan and I are leading the course, and we're collecting examples of best practices from around the country and overseas.

Here is a sampling of what we've spotted so far:

• Dozens of journalists at the Austin American-Statesman are now using Twitter. Internet editor Robert Quigley and Tribune Interactive's Daniel Honigman talk about how their organizations use Twitter for community outreach in this 9-minute video interview.
• Andy Carvin, social media strategist for NPR, talks about how NPR has used social media, such as Ning, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, in its inauguration and hurricane coverage.
• In this audio podcast, general assignment reporter James Janega of the Chicago Tribune discusses how Twitter helps him in his daily reporting.
• Poynter coverage on social media includes the recent Tidbit, "How to Use Twitter to Break News on Your Site When Staff's Away."
  
• In December, graphicdesignr.net listed 1,125 U.S. newspaper Twitter accounts -- a number that reached 1,360 in February before the author gave up.
• A dozen commenters have weighed in with additional examples here: How to use social media in the newsroom.

We'd love to hear your stories and experiences. Are you using any widgets that spotlight community conversations? Any interesting uses of Flickr, YouTube or other hosting sites? What about live-streaming events with ustream, Kyte or Qik? How are you using geotagging? Do you use social bookmarks like Delicious? Have you found value in using Digg, Reddit or other news sharing sites? How are you using Twitter or Facebook?