Social Media and Growth Within the Newsroom

July 31, 2011 in MozNewsLab

Image: One Week of The Guardian

Mohamed Nanabhay is an internet entrepreneur and Head of Online at Al Jazeera English. During his Mozilla Learning Lab lecture last Wednesday July 27th, he articulated to the group several issues the organization faced as it grew. One of them was, “how do you incorporate media being produced on the ground as you’re broadcasting it?”

Having alternate sources like social media can lead to growth and expansion not only within the online community but within the newsroom itself.

The idea for my project, Pop!, is based around the concept of semantics in social data. It’s a way to engage with the bigger revolution at work that’s driven by social media.  The tool essentially collects, interprets and visualizes collaborations already happening online.

Unlike other real-time analytic tools like ChartBeat, Pop! is not closed-off.  The idea is to remain free and widely accessible – it’s a visual interpretation of real-time data for all to engage with.

Think of it as “Trending Now” on crack.

In the newsroom, Pop! can be used as part of an overall news gathering strategy, similar to Al-Jazeera’s decision to incorporate citizen content as a force majeure.

Staff can discern how to incorporate the tool as a resource, IT partner, or general zeitgeist.  Newsrooms may also use the tool to resource personal accounts, lead stories, or first-hand witnesses. Citizen journalists can pull from it for their own pieces or for social timelines created on sites like Storify.

As demonstrated by Al Jazeera, perhaps the pioneer and certainly most powerful news organization in using social media to extend their reach – social media helps a newsroom grow on many different levels.

A critical part is to make sure it grows in the race to the top – by empowering citizens with news surrounding the issues they care about the most.

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