FIRST, WHY ARE THERE NO NEWS PRODUCERS ON TWITTER?

Twellow is the best application to find Twitterers grouped by occupation. I perused through the News category – noted a lot of freelancing journalists and some reporters, but no news producers or editors.

Twitter makes it easy for a community to tip the news media

News producers should understand that news sourcing has become social because anybody can now feed them story ideas. Moreover, news producers should FOLLOW others so their potential citizen news sources can DM (direct message) them with story ideas and breaking news that are best transmitted privately. News producers can provide journalistic value by positioning themselves as media hubs in their community.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA HIDES BEHIND THEIR CALL LETTERS AND BROADCASTS ONE WAY

Advice to mainstream media – don’t hide behind your call letters or mastheads on Twitter – use your real reporter and producer names like WUSA9. And don’t arrogantly just use Twitter blatantly as a one-way broadcast media- this is old media think and keeps your brand isolated from your constituency. Following others who you respect as news sources will expand the distribution network you will leverage as a media hub. And those you follow will be appreciative.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA STILL CALLING TWITTER UNRELIABLE NEWS SOURCING

Granted, individual Twitter sources are not trustworthy at face value. What makes citizen journalism credible is the aggregation of individual sources into a collective, accountable voice. This is what makes citizen review sites like Yelp more trustworthy than the Twitter-like pronouncements of a Zagat‘s restaurant review; Yelp’s statistical samples are large enough to prove its results, and Zagats is a black box.

Citizen sources are much closer to breaking news events (as seen in Mumbai and Gaza), and the “reporting” or research / interpretation of the news can be performed by either mainstream media or citizen sources. Dave Winer makes the case that the social media does vet and report news (his diagram above).

It seems obvious that once mainstream media surrenders its position that only they can report news by sending out salaried news crews and cameras, real economies of scale (think free) of news sourcing happens. Mainstream media can then add quality (and value) by filtering interesting stories arising from a magnitude more citizen sources than they have now. Twitter is, in essence, a massive extension to their 800-”hotline”. Now, if the media would only listen.

KUDOS TO MAINSTREAM MEDIA WHO ARE SERIOUSLY EXPERIMENTING WITH TWITTER

Let’s congratulate a few news media companies and individuals that have put together a comprehensive Twitter presence.

Tori Blase, CNN – the only major news producer I see out there

Dave Courvoisier, KLAS TV anchor, Las Vegas – thanks for your sincere offers of help

WUSA9, Washington DC

Patrick O’Brien, WUSA Web Director – Patrick introduced me to the whole WUSA team on Twitter.

Peggy Fox, Anchor

Stephanie Wilson, News Producer

Angie Goff, Traffic Anchor

Lindsey Mastis, Digital Correspondent

Lesli Foster, Consumer Reporter

Kim Martucci, Meteorologist

Sara Walsh, Sports / Skins Uncensored

Andrew Nystrom, LA Times Social media and tech blogger – Andrew seems to be coordinating a massive effort to build media channels by category at the LA Times.

LATimesTweets lists all 59 LA Times Twitter feeds

Related articles:

The New Web 2.5 Opportunity: Create Media Hubs

The Future is LA Times.com, not LA Times the Paper

Slow Death of Traditional News Syndication

TODAY’S ONLINE CONTENT FATIGUE

Web 2.0 could be described as a phase in the evolution of the Internet that facilitated individuals in creating content within the constructs of social websites (blogs) and social networks (as participants). User-generated content was the New New Thing when it first appeared refreshingly on blogs (in 2002 blogs were being recognized as media), MySpace (2003), YouTube (2005) and Facebook (in 2006, it opened up beyond colleges).

Now, the discovery phase of Web 2.0 is over. Thinking bird’s eye level, all the content that needs to be online is now online. For example, there are literally thousands of articles (and videos) about how to raise your credit score, and using Google isn’t really going to help you find the best or most appropriate advice. Conclusion: content creation is now not as highly valued when it’s already ubiquitous and en masse.

However, one kind of content is still prized; it’s in the taglines of CNN and Huffington Post: “Breaking News“. Breaking news, in all its forms from reporting to analysis, holds the most social and economic value – world society reacts, trades and competes with New News.

MEDIA 2.5 – POSITIONING AS THE HUB OF BREAKING NEWS

The mainstream media finally figured out that journalist content creation also didn’t need to be salaried. Breaking news can now be reported by anybody in Mumbai or Gaza. Media measures its worth by traffic, and solidifying the market position of being the hub of Breaking News is where Media 2.5 is headed. That means having producers like CNN’s Tori Blase on Twitter‘s front lines receiving and monitoring news stories and alerts from her Twitter network. This reinforces CNN’s status as the breaking news hub when it has dispatches at the borders of citizen journalism. News sourcing is social, every news producer must do this to stay connected with the new citizen news sources and be relevant in the future.

WEB 2.5 – EMPOWERING WEB 2.0 INDIVIDUALS TO CREATE BREAKING NEWS MEDIA HUBS

The New New Media Properties have none of the mainstream media overhead and infrastructure for collecting breaking news – Huffington Post, Politico and video-based Funny or Die are the collaborative media that Web 2.0 facilitates. All they need are writers/video producers who want syndication, and what aspiring journalists/producers will turn that opportunity down? These sites have become talent agencies that trade talent exposure for content quality, and in turn elevates their online presence and traffic.

The window is open, but nobody sees it’s open yet. Any organization, company or even a team of like-minded individuals can now create Politico-type blog network/breaking news distribution properties cheaply by leveraging Web 2.0′s blog and website design applications. A key distinction needs to be made in developing a media property – the content being created and distributed must be quality controlled to attract traffic. Social networks built on platforms like Ning won’t work due to noise and content credibility arising from any yahoo who wants to be a participant. The mainstream media understands this distinction and have been augmenting their journalistic offering with a J-School trained blogger corps (examples: NYT, SFGate), basically trading in the name “column” for “blog”.

Web 2.0 facilitates individuals. Web 2.5 facilitates the development of collaborative websites. The real estate industry in particular can leverage Web 2.0 tools to create collaborative websites that position real estate agents as local “reporters”. Properties like Homescopes leverage Web 2.0-savvy real estate professionals to break local news like the details of recent home sales only they would know about. Seth Godin mentions today that real estate brokerages should create local e-newsletters… this idea aligns with the idea of real estate agent as reporter.

You wouldn’t buy GM stock today without checking Marketwatch.com, and consumers will soon understand they won’t put an offer on a house (in this weird market!) based on month-old data. Breaking news is the killer app.

WEB 2.5 – LEVERAGING THE MEDIA HUB TO ATTRACT TRAFFIC (AND ONLINE FAME)

If you want evidence that content creation is taking a back seat to content distribution, see Justin.TV, an online streaming media application initially launched to allow the masses to chronicle their lives in video. Unfortunately, most people’s 24-by-7 lives are excruciatingly boring, and Justin.TV has evolved into the leading do-it-yourself online Cable Access channel network that facilitates anybody who wants to “program” online TV. Naturally, the most in-demand content are the free broadcasts of subscription streams of sporting events and movies… value-based content is king.

And just so content creators won’t complain that I’m positing the “death of content”, on the contrary, good content creators will now flourish, and gain access to exposure and fame much more easily with the proliferation of the new Web 2.5 content distribution channels (and let’s just call them media).

Media hubs/channels are the antidote to content fatigue by facilitating relevant filtering for discovery of great stuff. Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop and Jason Calacanis’ Mahalo are based on nothing more than the collaborative insights of what is online good “breaking news” content. Somewhat autocratic, but a simple formula. It’s no coincidence that both Guy and Jason have attuned themselves to real time trends as well-networked Twitter celebs.

What I’m trying to say is – the opportunity is build these media hubs is wide open and easy to do… the challenge is to convince your network to participate in your hub. This is the spirit of post-Web 2.0.

Today’s New York Times acknowledges the citizen journalism that was so prominent during the Mumbai terrorist incident:

The attacks in India served as another case study in how technology is transforming people into potential reporters, adding a new dimension to the news media.

At the peak of the violence, more than one message per second with the word “Mumbai” in it was being posted onto Twitter, a short-message service that has evolved from an oddity to a full-fledged news platform in just two years.

Forbes acknowledges the power of Twitter and points out its weaknesses as a news source:

Social networks were flooded with bunkum about the events in Mumbai, to be sure. Cynics pointed out that much of the information was of questionable value. As one blogger pointed out, many tweets, particularly later on in the developing crisis, simply echoed the latest reports from mainstream outlets such as the BBC and CNN.

Finally, Poynter Online recommends the development of journalistic protocols for “Responsible Tweeting”:

1. Check information source before “retweeting”.
2. Include hashtags to categorize news, make queries and providing corrections.
3. Encourage updates and corrections.
4. Encourage the use of these protocols.

The age old (at least during this decade) new media question: is citizen journalism journalism?

Tom’s Tech Blog decries Twitter as an unreliable news source, and therefore not a news source, receives backlash from prominent bloggers:

Yes, Twitter is a Source of Journalism – Mathew Ingram

I Can’t Believe Some People are still Saying Twitter isn’t a News Source – Michael Arrington, Techcrunch

(Why is Twitter Unreliable?) The facts are often wrong.

This is the same argument that mainstream journalists used against blogs when they rose to fill a void in the news over the last few years. Yet even the NY Times admitted years ago that blogs were an important news source when disaster struck: “For vivid reporting from the enormous zone of tsunami disaster, it was hard to beat the blogs.”

But blogs are nothing compared to Twitter, which lets anyone with a cell phone instantly update the world with what they see and hear, via the simple and ubiquitous text message.

Sure, lots of Twitter messages are flat out wrong and can spread disinformation. But as Ingram notes in his blog post above, other people tend to immediately correct those errors. Bad information is quickly drowned out by good information.

CNN provides examples for both sides of the argument with Tweeting the Terror – How Social Media Reacted to Mumbai – remarkable Tweets emanating from the battlefront as well as wayward rumors and noise that questions Twitter information credibility.

Mumbai Attack Aftermath, Detailed Tweet by Tweet – Wired Blog

The simple conclusion is the fact that all citizen journalism – Twitter, cell phone conversations and pictures, Flickr – potentially contribute to the illumination of breaking news. The responders are the first on scene, minutes to hours before the mass media reporters, and news credibility simply requires filtering by both other citizens on scene and the trained media. There’s really no argument here.