1999 | Attend event, write about it for the next day’s paper.

2009 | Attend event, blog about it, tweet updates, talk to fans on Facebook AND write about it for the next day’s paper.

My former job How do reporters use social media in their daily work routines? What’s it all mean?

The Social Newsroom | Social media and the evolution of journalists’ routinesBrian Moritz, Ph.D. student

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University

For more, check out this poster online at: http://bit.ly/SocialNewsroom

3 Basic UsesBREAKING NEWS Stories published bit by bit.JIM | “You tweet them, you get them on the Web, you discuss with the editor whether or not they’re worth a story or folding into something.”

SURVEILLANCE Keep up with what’s happening on a beat or in a community.JASON | “In the old days, when we had a political columnist who could just write about politics and basically not have any other day job, they could go to county GOP meetings and touch base with those activists and then really get the pulse. Twitter is a way for me to do that while I’m sitting in a budget hearing because, you know, I’ve got to be responsible for both of those things.”

DISSEMINATOR Sharing stories and links.STEPHANIE | “My deadline is all the time. I’m writing all the time.”

Of the 17 reporters interviewed, 16 use social media in some manner. The interviews suggest that there is no industry-wide standard for how reporters use social media as a part of their jobs.

Social media use depends on:Reporters’ beats.Reporters’ attitudes toward social media.Editors’ attitudes toward social media.The needs/demands of reporters’ daily work.

• Reporters are also using social media to build their own personal brands, as well as the brands of their newspapers.

What’s next?• Observational study of reporters using social media.

• Ethnography of 21st century newsrooms.

* Content analysis or textual analysis of reporters’ tweets and Facebook posts.

Research question | How are newspaper journalists incorporating social media platforms into their work routines?

Why we’re here

Journalists’ routinesNews typification (Tuchman, 1978)

Beat system (Hallman, 2005; Meyers, 1992; Sanchez, 2007; Fishman, 1980)

Sources (Gans, 1979; Sigal, 1973)

Objectivity (Schudson, 1978; Soloski, 1989)

Deadline (Tuchman, 1972; Manning, 2001)

Journalism and social mediaNews becomes a fluid, two-way process between producers and consumers (Gleason, 2010; Hermdia, 2010)

Fits traditional journalism practices (Lasorsa, Lewis and Holton, 2012)

Ambient journalism (Hermdia, 2010)

Concerns about accuracy (Lasorsa, Lewis and Holton, 2012)

Financial (Ahmad, 2007)

Literature review

METHODS | In-depth interviews were conducted with 17 news reporters at newspapers across the United States.

• Reporters worked at newspapers ranging in size from 30,000 to 400,000 daily circulation. These newspapers tend to have significant online presences (unlike smaller, community papers) but are not so big that they have dedicated online staffs.

• Unlike previous studies, which focused on just one newspaper, this study examined numerous papers in order to focus on the routines of the profession itself, not of one particular organization.

• Participants were guaranteed anonymity. Their names, affiliations and beats are not used in this presentation. This was done to encourage the participants’ candor. Pseudonyms are used in the presentation in order to make it more readable.

• Transcripts were analyzed through the use of field notes and reflexive memos, from which themes were culled. These steps are consistent with grounded-theory methodology (Charmaz, 2006).

How did I study it?

What are they worried about?

Social Media & Sources

Online journalism, including social media, has accelerated the reporting process.JIM said that on 9/11, he was the first reporter in his area to know about Flight 93 because he was interviewing his local airport administrator.

“If I can tweet that, that’s a ‘holy shit’ moment. But what I was able to do was bury it in a story I wrote a couple hours later, cause by then everybody knew it.”

Acceleration of reporting leads to the spread of misinformation online.

Constant demands of social media. JIM | “If you’re making sure you’ve got everything that’s

being tweeted and retweeting it or independently verifying it, it’s pretty tough to keep working on your searchable database

about public payrolls.”

Social media demands keep reporters chained to their desks rather than out circulating their beats.

RON | “(Social media’s) fascinating to read, but it’s no substitute for going to the scene and seeing for yourself and talking to people

who are still moved by whatever they just saw and can tell you things that the cops aren’t gonna tell you. You’re not going to get much more than the official story from sitting in front of a screen.”

Demographic concerns: Are stories that impact the poor or elderly reflected on social media?

Decrease in interpersonal skills among young reporters. Future Research

Discussion Section• Social media is becoming an integral part of reporters’ daily work routines.

• The journalists interviewed are learning how to use social media to cover their beats, keep tabs on their communities, create conversations with readers and find sources for stories (existing and new).

* Reporters are making news decisions faster and faster – often at the scene of an accident or while a meeting is taking place – and making publication decisions on the fly by posting facts, notes and quotes to social media sites.

• Suggests a new level of typification (Tuchman, 1978). In addition to determining which story type an event fits into, a reporter must decide whether a piece of information is noteworthy enough to warrant an online post – and within that, what kind of online post (Just a sentence? A few paragraphs? Handle it via Twitter?). Then, after determining if it is worthy of an online update, the reporter must determine whether or not it is then worthy of the print edition. The decision to go online with a piece of news is made first, and then a separate decision-making process happens to determine whether or not it is worthy of making the print edition.

• Higher standard for print than for online.

• Social media is another task reporters must do during a work day.

• With the consolidation of beats, layoffs and furloughs, and juggling the competing demands of print and online, a reporters’ job is simply more busy than ever Adding social media to that can be challenging.

• Reporters are receiving little or no guidance from editors about how to best use social media on the job. They are learning as they go on their own.

•  Reporters who do use social media say they find it useful and helpful to do their jobs.

For the most part, the reporters

interviewed are using social media

like a traditional reporting tool and using it

within traditionaljournalism norms.

Social media is often a starting point for reporters.JUDE | “That’s kind of your standard practice now. When somebody is killed, you know, like a murder or something like that, the first thing you do is go to their Facebook page.”

Reporters are using social media as a new way to connect with old sources.

The interviews suggest that social media has not substantially increased the size and scope of the news net.

Some use of crowdsourcing, but the practice is not widespread.

Reporters are using social media to engage directly with readers.CINDY | “We’ve found that quite a few people are engaging the newspaper (via Facebook) whereas they were probably people that wouldn’t have bothered with calling us or emailing us or sending us a letter to the editor. So it’s just a quick, simple format that people might be more comfortable in communicating with us about our coverage or what we need to be covering.”

Courtesy The Wired Reporter