Writing for Twitter - good journalism in 140 characters

When a dam that held millions of cubic yards of toxic coalash near Harriman, Tenn., broke a few days before Christmas 2008, no one paid much attention other than those immediately affected by it and the local media. The disaster was epic -- compared to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska in 1989.

But it was Christmas and the country was in the throes of an economic crisis and the transition of a new president. And no one was killed.

But a few people were paying attention, and that made a difference. Amy Gahran, an independent media consultant in Boulder, Colo., and editor of the group blog E-Media Tidbits for Poynter.org, wondered what was going on. She's also a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists. Two days after the disaster, she wrote this for Poynter:

When I first learned of this disaster from SEJ colleagues by e-mail this morning (, I immediately launched the Twitter hashtag #coalash. Off and on today I've been posting links to news, context, background, opinion, resources, maps, and multimedia related to this unfolding story. Even EPA's Web manager, Jeffrey Levine, was tweeting relevant EPA maps and facility info.

Other Twitter users, including several Tenn.-area news orgs, adopted the hashtag. This made it easier for people to find and follow their coverage. Using a hashtag provides a broader view that includes local news coverage and extends beyond it. At the same time, a hashtag can amplify the reach of local stories. Online, this reach becomes especially crucial in the absence of delayed or absent mainstream national news coverage.

Once the buzz started on Twitter -- and came together through Gahran's hashtag -- news media from outside the East Tennessee area began paying attention and the story began to garner the international attention it deserved.

This story, and many others like it, amply demonstrate the power of Twitter as a journalistic device.

Once thought to be nothing more than an interpersonal communications trivial pursuit, Twitter has become an important information tool that can help journalists gather information and can also provide a means of distributing journalism to an interested audience.


What is Twitter

Twitter is a way an individual can connect with people who share the same interests and inclinations. An individual registers for an account on Twitter.com and selects a username. The individual can provide other information for a profile, but this is optional. The key thing is that the individual begins to contribute what, in Twitterland, are called "tweets."

In addition to the tweets, the individual can also begin to "follow" other users of Twitter; that is, the person finds other persons and begins to get a list of their tweets on his or her Twitter page.

As an individual contributes more tweets, he or she will attract "followers." These can start with friends and family, but if the tweets are at all interesting, follwers will show up whom the individual does not know.

This is just the beginning. There are many other aspects to Twitter, many of them outlined in this excellent article by Ellyn Angelotti.

But the big factor in Twitter is brevity. You have only 140 characters (letters, punctuation and spaces) to say what you have to say. That's usually between 10 and 15 words.


Writing a Tweet

Once you are on Twitter and are following a few people, read a page or two of tweets. You will get a sense of what is there and how people use it. You will be attracted, repelled, fascinated, confused -- and possibly even appalled. Remember that when you write a tweet, the people following you may have those same reactions, so begin deciding right away what kind of personality you want to form.

As a journalist writing for Twitter, you are trying to inform the people who are following you. But, remember too that as one of twitters, you are part of an ongoing conversation, and you should feel free to react to what others have said as well as introducing original information into the conversation.

Here are some things to think about and some guidelines:

• What's the point? Why are you posting? Have a goal in mind. Understand how you want people to feel when they have read you post.
  
  
• Information is more important, and interesting, than opinion.
  
  
• One or two points (of information, opinion, whatever) max. Not three. You'll quickly use up your space.
  
  
• Think: subjects and verbs. Complete sentences are not always necessary, but complete thoughts are.
  
  
• Emphasize verbs. Active, descriptive verbs. It's one of the basic truths of good writing.
  
  
• As in headline writing, "to be" verbs can be understood rather than written.
  
  
• Drop articles (a, an and the) unless they are necessary for clarity.
  
  
• Punctuate for clarity, not necessarily just to follow the rules.
  
  
• Same thing goes for AP style. Often AP style rules will help with brevity, but sometimes they don't.
  
  
• Use abbreviations only if you are sure your audience will immediately understand them. Don't use them just to show that you're hip to techno lingo.
  
  
• Don't be afraid to direct your tweets to individual users. Done correctly, this can help build your audience.
  
  
• Maintain a sense of professionalism. Using profanity and scatological language may give you a sense of coolness about yourself, but it's also likely to lose you followers. (On the day I wrote this, I stopped following an acquaintance for just this reason.)
  
  
• Ask and ye shall receive. One of the great things about Twitter (and the web in general) is that there are people ready to respond, particularly if what you want is reasonable and interesting. A well-formed question will attract responses and followers.
  
  
• Respect. Respect the language, your audience and yourself. Honesty, courtesy, modesty and civility are values in the Twitter society. Strive for them.
  

These are guidelines, not rules. They are mean to help you get started, not to lock you into a certain style or convention. Once you are on Twitter and a participant in the conversation, you can decide who you want to be and how you can use Twitter to be effective.


Continue reading:

Amy Gahran: Twitter Basics for Journalists & Recovering Journos
Step-by-step -- getting onto Twitter and making the most of it, from a major league Twitterer.

Terrance Ward: Using Hashtags for Organization in Twitter: Options for Making Microblogging Posts Ready for Viral Retweeting | January 5, 2009 | A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by the pound sign (#). Twitter, the pioneer microblogging service, saw its visitors quintuple in 2008. With so many more posts (or “tweets,” as they’re called on the site) being made, users are developing ways to organize and track the information meaningfully.

Craig Stoltz: How Twitter Finally Taught Me to be an Editor | Web2.0h...Really? | May 27, 2008 Fact is, it’s tough to convey any substance in 140 characters. You have to carefully weigh every word, letter and space. Even punctuation.

Margarent Mason: Writing My Twitter Etiquette Article: 14 Ways to Use Twitter Politely | The Morning News | August 15, 2008 Some good thoughts about how to use Twitter appropriately by Margaret Mason.

Ellyn Angelotti: JournoTweeting | Poynter Institute | This excellent article by Ellyn Angelotti takes you through Twitter step by step and then tells you how a journalist should be using it. Lots of links and good advice

JPROF celebrates fourth anniversary

The last day of the year holds a special place on the JPROF.com calendar. It's the day in 2004 that the site went live. Thus, we celebrate our fourth anniversary today.

The site has come a long way from that small study and cold winter in Emory, Virginia, where it was first conceived and built.

I had finished that fall writing the manuscript for Journalism: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How, an introductory journalism text, and had been working on the web site for the book that the publishers, Allyn and Bacon, wanted. The idea came to me that the book's web site could be broadened into something even larger (since the book was 26 chapters, the site for it was pretty big) and more comprehensive. I had a couple of other texts on the market at the time, so the idea of a site that concentrated on teaching journalism grew like a weed in well-tilled soil.

Then there was the name.

I played around with a couple of things and can't remember how the idea of "jprof" struck. I know I was after something short. When those five letters came together in my head, I checked on the URL availability and, to my utter amazement, found that combination available.

It was a sign. The site had to be built.

Four years later, the site finds itself at the top of the hit list when you do a Google search for "teaching journalism."

I have heard from people all over the world who have found the site and used its contents. I am grateful to all of them and to all those who recommend the site. I plan for it to keep growing. This year, 2008, was certainly one of growth -- some in ways that I never could have imagined when the site was first built.

First, we saw the publication of two new books plus the seventh edition of the venerable Writing for the Mass Media. The new books are:

• The Writing Wright, a book of essays, quotations and ponderings about journalism, writing and the writing life, and
  
  
• Kill the Quarterback, a mystery novel published by Bushido Press/Greyhound Books.

Both of these books have separate URLs, but the web sites are housed under the JPROF rubric. JPROF has also become the home for the Writing for the Mass Media web site in light of the publisher's decision to stop hosting web sites for their books (a decision I find odd and puzzling).

Bigger changes are afoot.

During the last couple of weeks, I have been developing a new model for a news web site based on the concept of link journalism. This concept posits that there is much good information on the web and part of the responsibility of a journalist is to bring that to readers through the power of links. An outfit in Reston, Virginia -- Publish2 -- has developed software that makes it easy to gather links, organize them and publish them on a web site.

So, what we are doing is taking the Publish2 software and feeding it into some specialty sites:

• BeePROF.com, all things bees
  
  
• BooksPROF.com, all about books
  
  
• SmallChurchPROF.com, everything about small churches (with my old friend Chuck Warnock)

The next possibility is GrowPROF.com, which will deal with everything from gardening to agriculture. Other ideas are in the wings.

These sites are within the JPROF site but have their own URLs to make them easier to find. In the year 2009, we hope folks will show up. We'll be posting more about this idea and these sites in the coming days.

And there's more to talk about, but as usual, I ramble on too much already. So, it being New Year's Eve, party on!

Journalism 5W - the Chinese edition

It was quite a surprise that awaited me the other day at the door of the farm house -- a box full of the Chinese edition of Journalism: Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. (Here's the book's Allyn and Bacon web site.)

My publisher, Allyn and Bacon, had told me nothing about this.

But there it was, five copies of the book with a completely different cover containing Chinese lettering and the first pages inside also contained Chinese letters. After that, the thing is in English.

The cover of the book says it is published by Peking University Press.

The publisher's letter that accompanied these books said it had been produced by Pearson's (Allyn and Bacon's parent company) Asia division.

Beyond that, I know nothing -- except that there are lots of people in China. I hope they're interested in journalism, American style.

Re-thinking the old media forms

Yes, you can do the old forms on the web. But should you?

This "old media" type says we should re-think the forms of our content. This New York Times article by Virginia Heffernan is bit depressing but very perceptive.

She writes:

. . .they should think about what content suits these new modes of distribution and could evolve in tandem with them. For old-media types, mental flexibility could be the No. 1 happiness secret we have been missing.

Stories behind the Frost/Nixon movie, confrontation

The stories behind the 1977 verbal confrontation between Richard Nixon and David Frost continue to fascinate. The release of the Ron Howard movie Frost/Nixon has given us some great stories from that era. We looked at the transformation of David Frost from satirist to journalist a bit in an earlier post.

National Public Radio's Fresh Air program yesterday had James Reston Jr. as a guest. Reston was one of the researchers that helped David Frost prepare for the interviews, and he told some throat-grabbing stories about the information that he was able to come up with when he interviewed presidential aide Charles Colson.

Reston was one of the people who believed Nixon had committed crimes and that this set of interviews was going to be the only trial he would ever get. He was satisfied with the outcome, and he later wrote about it in The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews. A play was based on the book, and the current movie is based on the play.

The interview is online. It's only 18 minutes long (for those of us old enough -- remember the 18-minute gap?) and well worth listening to.

Pulitzers to include online news organizations

This pretty much speaks for itself and can be filed under the "it's about time" category:

Prizes broadened to include online-only publications primarily devoted to original news reporting

The Pulitzer Prizes in journalism have been expanded to include many text-based newspapers and news organizations that publish only on the Internet.

The Pulitzer Board also has decided to allow entries made up entirely of online content to be submitted in all 14 Pulitzer journalism categories.

Update: Seth Goden has a good take on this. Essentially, there's not much of a change going on.

Inside David Frost's transformation from satirist to journalist

With the release of the movie Frost/Nixon, Clive Irving (books on Amazon) describes the transformation of David Frost from satirist to journalist. Irving was on the inside of this story, and the view is fascinating.

In the summer of 1966, Irving was one of two people hired by David Frost as "creative consultants" for The Frost Programme. The other was Tony Jay:

Tony’s idea was that TV could and should be opened up as a forum for the people to engage with power, and it was Tony who insisted on doing something that nobody had risked before, having a live studio audience with a microphone swinging precariously on a boom above them so that David could pull people into the discourse when they were provoked. Thus a lot of politicians found themselves suddenly not only being cross-examined by Frost but by aggrieved members of the public. Amazing to think now how novel and dangerous that was then, in 1966, when it began.

Frost landed his biggest interview nine years later with Richard Nixon, who three years before had resigned as president of the United States. Both Frost and Nixon had a purpose for coming together, and thereby hangs the tale.

Here is a part of that interview. The video is provided by the Daily Beast (:33):

The photo above shows Frank Langella as Richard Nixon and Michael Sheen as David Frost and is from the Frost/Nixon web site.

Rules for the student photojournalist

Every journalism student should learn the fundamentals of photojournalism. They should learn how to take pictures, and they should be given specific photo assignments.

Several years ago, I put together the following "rules" for training student photojournalists. If anyone has any comments, I would like to hear them.


RULE NO. 1: TAKE LOTS OF PICTURES.

You should assign a minimum number of pictures that the student should take, and that number should be high. For instance, if the photo is for a profile story where you anticipate using only one shot, the photographer should come back with at least 10 to 15 shots. In fact, 10 to 15 shots for any assignment would be a good minimum.

Young photographers tend to shoot too few pictures. They get one shot and one angle, and they don’t think about doing anything else. Assigning a high minimum number of pictures makes the students think about shooting different shots at different angles.

Young photographers should be told: keep shooting until someone needs medical attention or until you’re about to get hit by a truck.


RULE NO. 2: A PEN AND NOTEBOOK ARE AS IMPORTANT AS A CAMERA.

Photographers have to write down what and whom they are shooting. They will have to identify people for cutline information. They cannot trust their memories for any of this. They must have a pen and notebook with them at all times, and they must use it. They must also be accurate in getting their information, especially in spelling names correctly.


RULE NO. 3: PLAN.

As an instructor, you should talk with you students about their photo assignments. Help them plan what they will shoot. Some pictures happen spontaneously; most don’t. They are shot because the photographer planned to be there to shoot them.

One thing you might do is diagram the scene of a photo assignment with the student. Help the student figure out where the action is and where he or she should be to take a good shot. Most events -- speeches, parades, sports events -- lend themselves to this kind of planning.


RULE NO. 4: GET CLOSE.


Anybody can take wide-angle, establishing shots (top photo). Real photographers get as close to the action and the people as they can (bottom photo). They get expressions, hand movements, interactions, etc. They literally get in people’s faces.

Students should be told: if you show up at an event with a camera, people expect you to take pictures. You try not to be intrusive, but sometimes you have to be, and people will understand this.


RULE NO. 5: SHOOT IN THE BEST LIGHT POSSIBLE.

If you can shoot outside, do so. Shoot near a window if possible (but be careful). If you have to use a flash, do it. Light is what makes pictures possible, and nothing makes up for an absence of light.

Pay attention to the light. Many students don't and return with rotten pictures.


RULE NO. 6: EQUIPMENT DOESN’T MATTER.

Well, it does to some degree. But, students should never be allowed to use equipment as an excuse for not taking good pictures (unless the camera simply doesn’t work, of course). A good photographer adjusts to the limitations of the camera. A good photographer learns how to use the equipment he or she has to take the best pictures possible. You might tell students that one of the laws of photojournalism (and of life) is this: Equipment will never be quite good enough.

Students don’t have to know the innards of a camera to take good pictures either. They should know how to think about taking pictures. They should know what good composition is. They should know how to plan their shots. None of this has anything to do with whether or not a camera is digital or single-lens reflex or box Brownie.


RULE NO. 7: BE CREATIVE.

Require your students to return from an assignment with shots from more than one angle. Tell them to get high, get low, move around the room. Some situations -- like sporting events -- dictate where you can be. In most other cases, they should always think about their physical proximity to the subject. A shot from a high or low angle can make a fairly standard shot much more interesting. And, you never know which perspective is best until you have tried them all. Always move around--this will show you the options you have for each situation.

More on photojournalism:

• Basic photojournalism
• Basic photojournalism for beginners
• Photo galleries without the learning curve

A good take on being a reporter

Reporting is where journalism begins.

Without reporting -- gather facts, information, and views and putting all those together -- journalism doesn't exist. So we owe a deep debt to those who spend their lives doing the tough job of reporting.

Deborah Howell, ombudsman for the Washington Post, has a good take on what it takes to be a reporter in her current column.

What makes a good reporter? Endless curiosity and a deep need to know what is happening. Then, the ability to hear a small clue and follow it. When Post reporter Dana Priest first heard "a tiny, tiny piece" of what turned out to be the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal, she couldn't ignore it.

She also quotes former Post editor Ben Bradlee, not a bad reporter himself:

They've got to love what they're doing; they've got to be serious about turning over rocks, opening doors. The story drives you. It's part of your soul.

Read the whole thing.

Non-profit news: the new journalism

The New York Times has an article this morning on non-profit journalism -- an idea that has been around for a while. In fact, the Christian Science Monitor had a similar article, spotlighting the VoiceofSanDiego as the Times article did, back in February.

There are also articles in the Columbia Journalism Review, American Journalism Review, and elsewhere.

The basic idea is that a foundation or wealthy, public spirited individual puts up the money to fund journalistic efforts of one type or another. Sometimes, as the Times article points out, these efforts are locally based as in San Diego, Minnesota, Chicago and St. Louis.

Sometimes they are national, such as ProPublica or the Center for Investigative Reporting.

These organizations are most likely to use the web for the publishing and distribution of their products.

There are legitimate independence issues that can be raised about these efforts. What are the motivations of those who put up the money? Do they try to influence the journalism that is being produced?

But the fact that these questions can be raised do not make these efforts or organizations unworthy. Far from it. They can offer a valuable service to the public in an age when traditional media are abandoning their journalistic roles. They can offer outlets and employment, even if it is only temporary, to budding young journalists who understand the web and social networking far more intuitively some older folk.

In fact, ultimately the strength and staying power of these non-profit organizations will be in the people they hire rather than the journalism they produce. That's an idea that I want to develop in a later post.

Barack Obama: America's 'Professor in Chief'

Richard Monastersky, a senior writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education, has an article in a recent edition of the publication pointing out a number of things about the election of Barack Obama and Joe Biden with regard to higher education.

• Obama is a former professor. He taught at the University of Chicago Law School for 12 years.
  
  
• Michelle Obama worked in the administration of the University of Chicago.
  
  
• Joe Biden has been an adjunct professor at the Widener University School of Law for 17 years.
  
  
• Jill Biden is an English instructor at Delaware Technical and Community College's Stanton-Wilmington campus.

The article then quotes a number of academicians about Obama's professorial and deliberative style. One drew the comparison between him and Bill Clinton, another ex-law prof:

But Mr. Obama must avoid the temptation to overdose on deliberation, says Ms. Hoff. (Joan Hoff, a research professor of history at Montana State University at Bozeman.) The nation witnessed the hazards of that tendency during the presidency of Bill Clinton, another former law professor. "Clinton would talk everything to death and not come to a decision," she says, particularly with regard to delayed decisions about Kosovo, Bosnia, and Rwanda.

And then there was the ultimate academician, Woodrow Wilson.

The article is titled "America Elects a Professor in Chief."

How open will the Obama administration be?

National Public Radio had a story this morning speculating on how open the new Barack Obama administration will be. The story quotes former University of Alabama student (and friend) Christi Parsons, who covered the state legislature in Springfield for the Chicago Tribune when Obama was a state senator.

The gist of the story is that when he was in Springfield, Obama understood the press and conducted himself in an open manner.

But will that translate into an open presidency? Probably not, although we may finally see a president with the self-confidence of a John Kennedy in dealing with the press.