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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged social media

1. May 3, 2012 06:00 AM

   3 things big media can do to save independent journalism

   This is adapted from Rebecca MacKinnon's 2012 Hearst New Media Lecture, given at Columbia's J-school on April 19

   By The Editors

   By advocating Internet access that is open, interconnected, and neutral—which is not what's happening now—Rebecca MacKinnon argues that big media companies will be helping preserve conditions where a diverse media contingent can thrive. Specific points: 1. As app-based dissemination and social media supplant the Web, what’s good for the big media companies is not necessarily good for free speech and...

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2. May 10, 2012 02:12 AM

   Audit notes: Blodget’s anonymous Zuck fans, Ongo no-go, social news apps

   New York cover story dispenses with named sources

   By Ryan Chittum

   Here's the sourcing in Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget's New York cover story on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: "a colleague of Zuckerberg," "another early colleague of Zuckerberg," "one Silicon Valley veteran," "one Valley veteran," "A Zuckerberg confidant," "one insider," "a former Facebook employee," "a former Facebook executive fired by Zuckerberg," "A longtime Facebook exec," "some Zuckerberg skeptics," "One former Facebook...

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3. November 23, 2012 06:50 AM

   Audit Notes: not Fortune tellers; Foursquare, two million; Big Ten

   The magazine's picks for future Apple and Microsoft CEOs go awry immediately

   By Ryan Chittum

   Fortune peered into its crystal ball for the October 29 issue and came up with four "best bets" on who's in line to replace four tech CEOs, presumably years down the road (although it's a wonder how Steve Ballmer continues to hang on at Microsoft). The mag's top picks: iPhone chief Scott Forstall at Apple and Windows honcho Steven Sinofsky...

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4. June 3, 2011 11:52 AM

   Best Practices for Social Media Verification

   Some tips and thoughts from the experts

   By Craig Silverman

   Whether you view it as long overdue or just in time, I believe we are starting to see the emergence of best practices for verifying social media content and citizen reports. Recent weeks and months have seen leading practitioners of social media verification and crowdsourced verification share tips and thoughts to help move the discipline forward. Below is a summary...

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5. June 19, 2012 02:45 PM

   He said, she said

   Anyone can spread gossip with an iPhone, rather than depend on dishy columns

   By Kira Goldenberg

   Gossip, according to longtime New York Post columnist Earl Wilson, is hearing something you like about someone you don’t. I have no attachment to the celebrities whose tidbits were shared at a panel on gossip Monday night. But I’m not going to spill. I think people are allowed private lives, even though being in the know makes me a (momentary)...

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6. August 9, 2012 10:42 AM

   I tweet therefore I can

   Whose job is it to make sure tweeters stay within the law?

   By Hazel Sheffield

   Twitter now boasts 140 million active users, many of whom have used the social messaging service in the last two weeks to share instant results from the Olympics, glimpse behind-the-scenes moments with the athletes, and voice frustrations at mainstream media coverage, on-site organization, and the ticketing process. We’re in apparently in the middle of the first “Twitter Olympics,” which will...

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7. March 26, 2012 06:29 PM

   In Ecuador, a Social Media Workaround

   Oppressed journalists are having their say online

   By Emily Judem

   For three years, Ecuadorean journalist Lindon Sanmartín Rodriguez and his brother Pablo hosted a freewheeling talk radio show that analyzed the economy, wrestled with religious issues, and criticized the government of President Rafael Correa. They called it Digálo con Libertad, meaning Say it with Freedom. But in late 2010, the Sanmartín brothers were suddenly no longer allowed to say much...

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8. May 10, 2011 04:05 PM

   In Singapore, Social Media Aids Another Political Shift

   By Shibani Mahtani

   This past weekend was a historic one for Singapore, the small southeast Asian city-state that often escapes the attention of the world’s press, unless its rulers are threatening them with libel. On Saturday, Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) was dealt a small but sharp blow. While the PAP held on to power by winning 81 of the 87 elected...

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9. March 7, 2012 04:54 PM

   News Organizations That Haven’t Learned To Share

   The seams in certain outlets’ social sharing strategies

   By Justin D. Martin

   The Economist does not let users of its free app share news items via e-mail, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or anything else. An Economist representative told me over the phone that paid app users are permitted to share content, and that’s good, but the purpose of their free content is to lure payers, no? The Economist website allows users to share...

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10. June 15, 2011 08:18 PM

    Organizing via Facebook in the Age of Union-Busting

    By Ryan Chittum

    The New York Times's Steven Greenhouse has an interesting report today on a group of Walmart workers who are organizing—just not in the traditional sense. The vehemently anti-union Walmart crushes any attempt to unionize (at least in the U.S. and Canada), so a group called OUR Walmart is starting a social networking presence intended to pressure Walmart for better wages...

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11. October 4, 2012 06:50 AM

    Social media fails the ‘47 percent’ video taper

    Did the anonymous source need Mother Jones?

    By Hazel Sheffield

    When Mother Jones premiered the now-infamous 47 percent video on September 17, it received two million views in 24 hours and rapidly changed the discourse surrounding the campaign. The next morning, some outlets were already asking, “Is Mitt Romney over?” But why did the source of the video go to a news outlet like Mother Jones, instead of distributing it...

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12. February 24, 2012 02:19 PM

    Syria: Too Much Information?

    How journalists wade through a social-media flood

    By Dalal Mawad

    For foreign journalists, the Arab Spring uprisings and their aftermaths have ranged from exhilaratingly accessible (Egypt), to mortally dangerous (Libya), to frustratingly off-limits (Syria). Since Syria’s violent uprising began 11 months ago, the government has strictly limited journalist visas. The relatively few foreign journalists who have managed to enter Syria on a formal visa are required to report at all...

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13. May 17, 2012 11:00 AM

    The Facebook frenzy

    Retail investors prepare to jump on a richly valued IPO

    By Ryan Chittum

    The Wall Street Journal's page-one Facebook IPO story does a good job of capturing some uncomfortable parallels to the dot.com bubble. The Journal profiles three investors to give us a feel for how people are thinking about the most buzzed about IPO since Google. The headline on the story tells us that, "In Facebook IPO, Frenzy, Skepticism." But the story...

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14. November 11, 2011 04:05 PM

    The Romenesko Saga

    Some questions for Poynter about recent changes on its fabled site

    By Erika Fry

    Yesterday, Poynter’s Julie Moos published a controversial post on the journalism institute’s Romenesko+ blog, which she credited to my “sharp eye.” Her post, which addressed “incomplete attribution” in the posts of Jim Romenesko, the industry’s most beloved aggregator, instantly created a firestorm, with many journalists quickly tweeting and blogging in defense of Romenesko while others raised charges of plagiarism. Romenesko...

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15. May 30, 2012 05:30 PM

    Turning users into supporters

    Online startups need better ways to measure engagement efforts

    By Alysia Santo

    Building an actively involved audience ranks high on the priority list for news organizations, but as outlets around the country experiment with different approaches to this goal, the question remains: how do news organizations gauge audience engagement? A recent survey from the J-Lab, which was answered by 278 “digital-first” news startups, found that most of the respondent sites lack the...

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16. January 6, 2012 02:02 PM

    Twifficult

    Tweeting the change you wish to see is easy. Global attention is as elusive as ever

    By Justin D. Martin

    I was alone on a drive from Maine to Massachusetts in early December when a crazy idea hit me. Listening to Christmas music along a snow-lined I-95, my epiphany was to write a letter to rockstar Pink and ask her to sing a Christmas duet with me, the proceeds from which would be given to Doctors Without Borders to help...

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17. June 27, 2011 03:45 PM

    Twitter for Newsrooms #tweetsizedreportingmanual

    By Joel Meares

    Twitter has today released a new resource called Twitter for Newsrooms, which journalists can find and play around with here. According to the Twitter for Newsrooms site: We want to make our tools easier to use so you can focus on your job: finding sources, verifying facts, publishing stories, promoting your work and yourself—and doing all of it faster...

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