Interview with Schumacher about conducting newsroom social media training
Mary Louise Schumacher, art and architecture critic with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, was recently tasked with teaching her newsroom about social media and beat blogging.
What worked? What didn’t work? What did her peers think about all this fancy social media?
And most importantly, how can social media and beat blogging improve their reporting and make their jobs easier?
“There has been a lot of buzz in the newsroom about [social media], and people don’t know how to use these tools,” she said about why her paper started offering training.
The Journal Sentinel has come out as an early leader in giving social media training to its employees. Rather than just encourage its employees to use social media, the Journal Sentinel decided to discuss how to use social media to improve their journalism. Schumacher and her colleagues also had discussions about the ethical dilemmas that arise for journalists from social media.
The sessions were limited to 6-8 people per training session. This allowed Schumacher to spend the last 45 minutes of each two hour training session talking to individual reporters about how they could use these tools for their beats. Different social media tools work better for different beats, but the idea of beat blogging and expanding a journalist’s network can strengthen any beat.
“Of course what works for me as the art critic is going to be very different than what works for a political reporter,” Schumacher said.
Carefully considering which tools to use and how to use them for each beat and each reporter could lead to less frustration, more success and better results. When dealing with people who are often new to these technologies, more guidance tends to yield better results and also avoid some of the missteps can happen with social media. For instance, Schumacher said that many of the people who came into her training sessions never thought of using social media for beat blogging.
“A lot of people came expecting something very different than what they got,” she said. “But I think people were coming expecting to hear more about how to get our content out into the click stream, so to speak, and how to get our stories out where people are looking at them on the Web.”
While it’s not a bad idea to disseminate content onto new platforms, that’s hardly the best way to use social media. The best journalists and news organizations use social networks to be a part of a larger conversation — to connect with people. Just using social media to bring in more Web traffic would be wasting the vast potential that social media offers for journalism and beat reporters.
“What we focused on in the training sessions is how to use networks and how to build communities around your beats to be better reporters, to actually improve your journalism,” she said. “That came as a little bit as a surprise to people, and I think a pleasant surprise.”
Listen to this podcast to hear why your newsroom should conduct beat blogging and social media training.
Also, don’t miss the fantastic conversation that Schumacher started about which online tools are best for reporters.
Some other topics discussed:
- Why does beat blogging make journalism better?
- What concerns arise with social media and journalistic ethics?
- Has anyone found stories using social media since the training?
- How did the training go over with the newsroom?
- Are certain social media tools going over better with your newsroom than others? Are some easier to pick up?
- What kinds of tips would you offer to people who want to conduct social media training in their news organization?
Click here to stream the interview. Or download the MP3.
The best online tools for beat reporters
There is a good conversation going on Seesmic right now about the best online tools for beat reporters.
One of the beat bloggers we follow, Mary Louise Schumacher, started the thread on Seesmic because she is going to be training her colleagues on beat blogging. She is asking people for advice on the best online tools for beat reporters.
I’d strongly encourage all of you to check out the thread and join the conversation. In short, I’d suggest experimenting with different tools, and I’d also recognize that different beats work better with different online tools. Both points are discussed on the Seesmic thread.
If you don’t have a Web cam, you can respond in the comments section below this post.
Here is the original video in the thread:
Here is David Cohn’s response:
And here is my response:
There are many other responses, and all of them are informative. Join the conversation so we can learn together.
Covering urban design in the Midwest – An Update from Affiliate Beat Blogger
Below is an update from: Mary Louise Schumacher.
As I think I mentioned in my introduction as an associate beat blogger, the architecture/urban design part of my beat is quite new.
I have made one decision — to create my network around the subject of urban design. A subject that’s about the literal fabric of the community seems so suited to the beat blogging approach and it lends itself to a wider breadth of voices than, say, a network around visual art would.
In any case, I have been going about the business of reaching out to new sources the old fashioned way, by grabbing quick meetings over coffee and lunch. But, as I make these connections, I’ve been sharing
my vision for a network, which would include architects, city planners, academics, artists, developers, neighborhood association leaders, and so on.
The response has been whole hearted enthusiasm and offers of help. The take away: some face-to-face chats with the would-be network has been a great source of ideas for how to build the network. And it’s
building buzz, too. Key people are on board, some are recruiting others and I’ve got a notebook full of topics for discussion. One architectural firm offered to host a reception for the group on their roof top overlooking Milwaukee’s river and skyline.
I realize that today’s excitement may not result in tomorrow’s participation, but I believe it may help give the network a proper launch.
In the meantime, I continue to send out a weekly email newsletter that provides links back to my Art City blog, which is one-stop shopping for all of my art and architecture content, recommendations for the
weekend, previews of what’s ahead and so on. I’ve been doing this, I think, for nearly two years now and have nearly 2,000 subscribers. I promote this newsletter when I can in my tag line at the end of stories and in the blog. I’ve also (thanks to Dave’s advice!) recently started using Twitterfeed to send automatic updates from the blog out to Twitter and Facebook.
For such a sizable list, I don’t get as much direct communication as I’d like. But I’m realizing I need to more consciously set out to engage people.
Two other very quick things. Several reporters at the paper are looking at ways to innovate. We’ve been producing proposals for several months now. Last week, we produced a proposal on beat blogging
(with a lot of support material from the efforts some of you have made and from the Beat Blogging Blog) and solicited specific proposals from the newsroom. The hope is to get more people experimenting with these
tools and to raise awareness about how they can improve our reporting and connections to the community.
Lastly, I wanted to share a project with you that I cooked up before I joined this group. It’s very much in its beta phase still. But I’d love your feedback. It’s not precisely beat blogging, but the core
concepts are there. Here it is: http://www.jsonline.com/links/inthemaking.
So, there’s my update. I’d love to hear more about how all of you are doing. Has anyone come up with some new strategies for incorporating all of these things into the day?
