Reporters should be taught vital social media skills as part of their training, say editors.
The topic was up for discussion at the National Council for the Training of Journalists’ digital training seminar which was attended by a number of regional editors at the forefront of digital journalism.
The seminar, held at the Press Association in London, looked at how digital journalism techniques for getting stories first and breaking the news are essential for all journalists and should be integrated into training.
Speaking at the seminar, Chris Maguire, editor of the Chorley and Leyland Guardian, said: “Social media skills aren’t optional. They are a must. It has to be integrated into overall training.
“It is important to the regional press because we can’t be everywhere, but we can use social media. For newspapers to be relevant they have to be relevant to the lives of their audience. Social media gives you a bigger voice.
He added: “Social media can find stories. It can’t write them.”
Fergus Bell, a senior producer at Associated Press, said that social media helped his news team to find and share stories and he used Twitter on a daily basis.
Said Fergus: “It is real people in a digital space. If you tweet something it’s real. To ignore Facebook is to ignore stories.”
The speakers agreed that social media is important in the newsroom but stressed that Facebook and Twitter are not a substitute for essential journalism skills such as shorthand, law and the ability to meet and connect with people.
The event was chaired by Andrew Hawken, head of digital media at Sky News.
Also speaking were Stefan Stern, director of strategy for Edelman and former columnist for the Financial Times; Ian Reeves, director of learning and teaching at the University of Kent; Alan Marshall, group managing editor at The Press Association; and Laura Oliver, community coordinator for news at the Guardian online.
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In my experience, reporters are training editors how to Tweet.
This piece of advice is miles behind the learning curve in decent newsrooms. Journalists coming out of NCTJ are already touting Google+ as the next big thing, they’re moving on from Twitter, I’m afraid.
Get down with the kids, people.
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Well blow me down with a feather. Journalists should learn how to do job shocker.
COMMON flippin SENSE
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In my experience most journalists are fully aware of the advantages of tweeting and social networking.
This is a bit like winding the clock back to the early part of the last century and saying that it might be useful if journalists learned to use that new-fangled telephone thingy.
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Tweet from the Cardigan: OFFS!
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Journalists may know how to tweet but most are too rushed off their feet filling newspapers to make a decent job of it.
How many reporters have the time to watch the numerous stories that flow on the Twitter feed?
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