Thursday night I did something I’ve never done in my career before. I lost a reporters notebook.
I covered a fashion show that night, and it must have fallen out of my camera bag while I ran around shooting photos and video. The worst part is I didn’t realize it was gone until Friday morning. No chance to check all the places I went that night in the banquet hall. I made calls, but no one had seen it.
But I also did something I never dreamed 10 years ago I’d be doing today. I tweeted about it.
The Patch Web sites, including my own in Millburn-Short Hills, has a spot in the top left where our latest tweet appears on the page (you can see it at right). It’s changed how I approach my game as a journalist because it’s a new tool that has given me a new way to report the news.
On Friday, I mentioned how I lost my notebook and put a call out to anyone who might have seen it. I posted my phone number for anyone to contact me if they had seen it. No one called to say they saw my notebook (it’s gone, never to be seen again), but the reaction was interesting. People asked me about it on the street. I got several @replies wishing me luck in finding it or would let me know if they heard anything. It even spilled over onto my work-related Facebook page when I posted something there. My lost notebook became a topic of conversation.
And the tweet was only on our homepage for about 30 minutes.
Twitter is certainly a conversation starter for me because of how we use it, and it’s not just conversations on the Internet. It’s conversations I have in coffeeshops, at the events I attend or even on the phone. I got a phone call last week in response to a tweet about a school board meeting.
Posting something about an upcoming event is fine, but if you want to have those conversations you need to do more than post how the Township Committee meets tonight or the boys soccer team plays Friday. You need to post your observations. What are you seeing on the streets right now?
It’s also a fantastic way to report breaking news, especially with how the feed is placed on our homepage.
Recently, there was a tragic car accident in the South Mountain section of town. The 19-year-old passenger in the car died from his injuries a day later. But the night of the accident–a Sunday, which is supposed to be my day off–I was sitting at home in my pajamas.
Maybe I should have driven the 30 minutes to the scene, but I didn’t. I knew I wouldn’t get official news that night from the police or the fire department (they were all at the scene and the public information officer doesn’t work Sunday nights).
But I didn’t need to go to the scene because I had neighbors calling me, e-mailing me and, most importantly, tweeting me. We didn’t have an official story Sunday night (I had something at 8:30 a.m. Monday), but I was able to post news from neighbors who watched the scene unfold via Twitter. It fed right into the site. And it was citizen journalism at its best.
I’ll post live updates from government meetings or important events I attend. I post photos, which get quite a number of views, from events, like the Halloween parade Saturday night. Again, it feeds straight into our site long before I can sit down and write a full story.
And the citizen journalism, crowd sourcing opportunities are fantastic. After a severe thunderstorm brought hail in July, I asked for photos. I not only received photos, but I also received a link to a YouTube video. Friday, I asked for photos from the school Halloween parades. I received several. I don’t always get a response, but more times than not I receive something.
In a job where I have no office, it’s also a good tool to tell people where I am. People have shown up places because they need to talk to me. “I saw your tweet and decided I needed to track you down.”
I’ve become a disciple of UberTwitter because it allows me to do the things necessary for my job. I can post photos. I can post a link to my “location” (usually only good for 1150 meters since the map is generated by a cell tower).
I’ve also learned not to worry about my number of followers, which is something I see so many people lament on Twitter. Your following will grow over time. It’s never by leaps and bounds at first, but it does grow. There are days I pick up 10 followers. There are days no one follows me. And there are still other days when the only followers I pick up are spambots. But I know what I tweet gets to a larger audience because of how we use Twitter on our site. But in the end, if people want to read, they will. If not, oh well?
And at the same time, I’ve also learned to be selective in who I follow too. There are people I find productive to follow and like reading nearly everything they post. I may learn something or I laugh. Or I can get a news tip out of what they post. But if I followed everyone who followed me, I would have too many people cramming my feed. I eventually may follow someone back if we start to converse via Twitter.
Of course, when you’re starting you need to pick people to follow in order to build a little bit of a following (I will look for people from Millburn-Short Hills tweeting and follow them in hopes they’ll follow me back or at least learn about Patch). But when you’re following over 100 people, you need to start being selective.
And even if you’re selective, you need to know you’ll never keep up with the conversation. I look back a little bit. But if I looked back at every tweet since I last logged on, all I would be doing is reading back and wouldn’t be able to take part in the active conversation. Twitter is about what’s happening now, which is something I can relate to as the editor of a community news Web site.
There’s still much to learn, though, like what should I do with the lists feature. I created a list on my work account of Patch people (it’s not complete yet). I don’t know how useful it is, especially since no one has followed it yet. And I’m sure there will be more to learn in the future.