Twitter users are providing interesting perspective on and coverage of the FTC’s Journalism and the Internet Age workshop today in Washington, D.C. using the hashtag #ftcnews. The chat below aggregates the Tweets – check them out.
I’ve been on hiatus from ianhillmedia.com for the past week or so to focus on writing entertainment posts for Recordnet’s LENS blog and building Twitter.com/209Vibe (left), a resource for music and entertainment fans in Stockton and Modesto, California. The latter is the fourth active Twitter account that I run or help maintain.
209Vibe on Twitter is designed to serve as a local entertainment wire. Promoters and musicians Tweet or send me information about upcoming concerts and events and I (re-)Tweet it. I also re-Tweet entertainment stories from local news organizations and occasionally interact with performers.
My goal is to make Twitter.com/209Vibe the first stop for local residents who want to know where they can go for nightlife in their community.
In its first five days, Twitter.com/209Vibe attracted 85 followers and been added on three lists. It may not sound like much, but considering there are probably less than 40 active Tweeters in Stockton, I’m very happy with the results so far.
It’s gotten me thinking a bit more about best practices for print reporters who Tweet. Reporters who have a smart, realistic approach to Twitter can use it to reach readers and build the sense of community that’s vital in the new media world.
Some of the most interesting discussions about ideas presented at journalism conferences doesn’t happen at the conferences themselves. It occurs on Twitter.
Conference attendees typically pick a hashtag for the event and use it to provide live coverage of presentations. Observers from around the world then offer their opinions on the ideas discussed. Interesting conversations about the future of journalism often ensue.
Here’s a round-up of some of the most interesting Tweets from “Journalism and the New Media Ecology: Who Will Pay the Messengers?”, a conference held over the weekend at Yale.
That first step is admitting that our two main philosophies on the future aren’t likely to save the news media any time soon.
Old media traditionalists can’t be confident that newspapers will return to prominence. The decline of print (and television news, and radio) most likely will continue, as shown by the evidence in part one of this series.
New media evangelists, meanwhile, haven’t proven that they’re ready to replace print. That’s because even some of the biggest Internet sites have yet to discover a working financial model that can ensure their long-term stability, as illustrated in part two of this series.
If we admit that we as journalists don’t have all the answers, perhaps we’ll be more likely to search outside our profession for advice.
