Creating News Story

Using Citizen Media Updates

Prepared by Tarek Amr@gr33ndata

It’s an Easy Recipe• First of all, pick your

topic.• Exactly like cooking, the

first thing you do next is to get the ingredients

• The Ingredients here are tweets, blogs and status updates on social media websites

• Just like ingredients you need to find a way to store them in cool place for them not to go bad

Recipe

Shopping• Shopping takes place in

social websites like blogs, twitter, tumblr, Facebook, Flickr, Pinterest, YouTube and many others.

• As long as goods are free, make sure to buy slightly more than your needs so that you have the luxury of choosing the most suitable ones while writing your story. Just like cooking, a good story

relies on good ingredients

Storage and Cooling

• Since social websites are updated very frequently, there should be a way to story your findings, especially if you are going to write your story after a while.

• Also searching for a tweet - one or two weeks later - is not an easy task.

• Exactly like in food, each has its appropriate method of storage.

Twitter Favorites• One of the features many

users overlook in twitter is the favorites; that yellow star icon there.

• No need for external websites or tools to save the tweets.

• Can be used anywhere, even on twitter on your mobile phone.

• But there is no way to tag, categorize, or re-order your favorites

Twitter search results are limited to just few days ago

Other Places for Storage

• Delicious.com• Diigo.com• Kippt.com• stumbleupon.com• Storify.com

To be able to store blog posts, vides, photos, tweets or anything using tags for easy retrieval

Or use a notepad

• The notepad on your PC or even cloud-based tools such as Evernote and Google Docs can be useful too.• You can add notes next to the links.• Can reorder the links you collect easily.• Can write the starting paragraph and ending one

there.• But might not be with you all the time • Some might wonder, why use a notepad while you can

keep the info in your bogging system or newspaper's CMS?

Salad• Tweets are too short to add

background to news being sent there.

• Normally topics have been discussed there all day long, so tweeps assume readers are aware of their context.

• That's why you should make sure to start your story by giving the readers the needed background, and add the needed context throughout your post.o What's the importance of this?o Why are they discussing that now?o Who are those people?o Will international audience

understand this local joke?

Make sure to start your post with an attractive introduction

Setting the Ingredients• Normally the case with blogs is

different than it in twitter.• Bloggers might write more

details in their posts, most of them are either personal or only important to their own audience.

• So, you better be able to pick the most useful and attractive parts for your readers.

• Many small chucks from many different blogs is usually more diverse than bigger chunks of less blog posts

Remove seeds before using

Preparation method• After the intro, the story has to come in

layers, just like this sandwich• Order it the way the most attractive to

the readers, but like moves or stories one part should lead to the other.

• You better bind the unrelated tweets or posts together with phrases of your own to make them belonging to each other. Like the cheese and pickle here.

• You better discuss the different points of view and opposite opinions.

• Don’t forget the spices; i.e. photos, videos, quotes, questions, etc.

The Dessert

• You are free to end your story with:o A Questiono A paragraph that summarizes ito Your own point of viewo Or whatever you want

• Either by words of your own, by quoting someone, or even with a picture if you want.

This is mainly what we usually do in Global Voices Online

In this link you can find different ways to participate with us

http://globalvoicesonline.org/for-bloggers/

Or you can contact me for help if you wanthttp://www.tarekamr.com/

@gr33ndata

All photos used here are published under creative commons license, and here are links to them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshua/247290826/http://www.flickr.com/photos/benjaminkrause/2416894449/http://www.flickr.com/photos/avlxyz/67408669/http://www.flickr.com/photos/yarwood/2385752458/http://www.flickr.com/photos/jesswebb/3569002360/http://www.flickr.com/photos/preppybyday/5076899310/http://www.flickr.com/photos/criminalintent/5813962328/