Facebook tips for journalists

If you're still trying to get your head round how to make the best use of social networking tools, you may want to have a gander at Facebook's Media page.

As blogged by Paul Bradshaw, the resource is designed to give guidance on "best practice" for journalists wanting to boost their online profile. Although, he says, it features "ad-speak" heavily, it can be pretty useful as a resource.

For those who might wish this sort of thing would all just go away, there is a basic introduction to using Facebook as a journalistic resource plus tips, case studies and links to examples, such as Arianna Huffington's page, for those who are already users of the site.

The process is broken down into three stages: gaining short-term distribution, building lasting connections and advancing the story and features tips such as having "Like" or "Recommend" button on your articles as well as interacting with your audience through regularly kept status updates and creating "events" on Facebook to promote broadcasts.

Should journalists' social media use be policed by the PCC?

The Press Complaints Commission's code of conduct is usually standard practice for most newspapers and the development of online content has already provided grey areas for lawyers but Leicester Mercury editor Keith Perch has questioned the role of the PCC, on his blog, when it comes to journalists' use of social media.

He is quick to explain that the scope would be for the professional use of such tools- such as linking to work done for a particular publication - treating it in the same way as a newspaper columnist and therefore personal use would not be included.

Quoting an email he sent to his journalists asking for their views, Perch writes: "As a columnist, the journalist gets far more freedom and is able to express an opinion. However, as a columnist their work is subject to my editing. I reserve the right to edit their posts.

"In practice, I never see their posts until after they have been published, but staff know that I am reviewing them and, therefore, I believe, they take this into consideration before publication."

Perch is inviting people to debate the issue on his blog. What do you think? Should Twitter feeds, official Facebook pages and the like come under the remit of the PCC?

(via Jon Slattery)

Friday round-up: lessons from Brazil, going straight to the source and writing like J.K Rowling

Protecting the print product when you go online

We start with a story from the WAN-IFRA editors' blog on how the southern Brazilian newspaper Zero Hora has created a proactive online strategy that will protect its print edition, a product that got 2% circulation bump last year.

Zero Hora has 210 journalists working in its integrated newspaper. Although there are specific teams allocated to print and online, these teams are fluid and journalists are expected to understand the work of others and be flexible in what they do.

Speaking to the blog Editor in Chief Altair Nobre says that as a result of the internet newspapers constantly have to strive to be more original and creative, working harder to convince people to read the paper.

The online version is designed to be very interactive. For example, the Porto Alegre region has a rather unstable climate, explains Nobre, and so Zero Hora editors invite readers to send in pictures and short reports when there are storms.

Other key factors in the paper's success come from having a "young attitude" which attracts new readers from the younger generations and having a carefully planned out social media presence.

Ben Goldacre calls for unedited source material on one website

Journalism.co.uk is one of many to highlight Dr. Ben Goldacre's suggestion for a website that would have a variety of features to improve media transparency over their primary sources for certain stories as well giving readers “unmediated/unedited access to full comments from interested parties”.

The Bad Science author (pictured) suggested the site could do the following:

• Give each news story a unique ID;
• Any involved party can add/upload a full press release or quote to that story’s page;
• Anyone can add a link to a primary source;
• Anyone can vote these up or down like on digg/reddit;
• You can register as a “trusted source” and not need to be modded up or down;
• Anyone can add a link to media coverage of that story.

Who do you write like?

Finishing on a lighthearted note, if you grew up hoping to be the next Hunter S. Thompson, there's a handy little web tool that lets you analyse your writing and see which famous scribe you are most like.

I Write Like takes a pasted bit of text and compares it to the writings of hundreds of famous authors, giving you a result in seconds.

As one college media blogger points out, the results vary wildly depending on which text you submit. For example yours truly writes like Chuck Palahniuk, H.P. Lovecraft and J.K Rowling depending on which blog post is submitted.

It's all a bit of fun for a wet Friday afternoon. Just don't come crying to me if you're told you write like Barbara Cartland.

Project GStyle: Google gets some fashion sense

An interesting find today from blogger Adam Tinworth – Google have decided that fashion bloggers have got the best grasp of social media.

Above all those bloggers who choose to cover other industries, it’s those dedicated followers of fashion that are the cream of the crop when it comes to their understanding of social media tools.

Google have set up GStyle, an internal research project helmed by blogger Tony Wang of post.fashionism fame, to quiz fashionistas on how they use the internet, what their biggest challenges are and how Google can help them reach the upper echelons of blogger fame.

As Tinworth points out, the automatic assumption would be that the tech industry would be top of the tree. But, he writes, personal experience has show that there are vast swathes of the tech industry that don't "get" social media at all.

It makes you wonder how far off the mark journalists and media people are with their own understanding. The information may be for Google’s eyes only for now, but if it is released, there could be a lot to learn from it.

In the meantime, perhaps one should check out the list of the most influential fashion bloggers and see how they do things.

Study: Online and Social media boosted coverage of General Election

The televised leaders’ debates may have been the main talking point of the 2010 General Election but a new study highlighted by journalism.co.uk suggests that mainstream coverage was “enriched” by the use of online and social media.

The report, 'UK election 2010: mainstream media and the role of the internet: how social and digital media affected the business of politics and journalism', written by the co-founder of the BBC News website Nic Newman is the result of interviews conducted with more than 20 journalists, political bloggers and founders of political websites.

In a release to mark today’s launch of the report, Newman states how the results show that Twitter in particular has become a "core communication tool" in political and media circles.

With more than 600 party political candidates using the service during the election, it became "an essential source of real-time information for journalists and politicians", he says.

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) also conducted a survey of more than 200 18-24-year-olds, as part of the study, which suggested that "unprecedented levels of participation" with the general election were a result of increased social media coverage.

The use of social media tools by journalists and mainstream news sites, such as liveblogs and digital correspondents, "helped to amplify the impact of social media even further" on this age group, says the study.