My cohort has only completed its second class of Writing for Converged Media, but, of course, we’re already knee-deep in it all.
Yesterday we welcomed Mandy Jenkins, social media editor for TBD.com and NPR Blogger Mark Memmott to speak to us.
It still amazes me the unbelievable resources the IJ program offers me and others in the major. Mandy spoke to us about the importance of incorporating social media into one’s everyday reporting routine or simply using it as a resource to get the news out. Mark talked to us about liveblogging.
But the fun didn’t stop there. Professor Amy Eisman assigned us very specific duties: either live blog or tweet one of the speakers and then write a story about one of them.
I have to say, initially the thought of live tweeting was a bit intimidating. If I was going to write a story, did this mean tweet, take notes AND pay attention to the content of the lecture?
Fortunately, I decided to break up the assignment – tweet about Mandy, write about Mark. But Mandy made a good point: if you’re live tweeting an event, use your Twitter timeline to your advantage; let it serve as some of your notes for a future story.
Here is a look at part of my timeline during Mandy’s talk. Not bad for a first-time live tweeter if I do say so myself.
I started out my career as a writer, but with the changes in the industry happening more quickly than a daily paper can put out its product, I’m thankful to learn all of these cutting-edge tricks of the trade.
How do you engage your readers at your publication? How have you had to adapt to the technological advances in the industry?
