Slides for workshop for York Daily record.

1. Why We Engage
Steve Buttry
sbuttry@journalregister.com
York Daily Record/Sunday News
November 9, 2011

2. Read more about it
• stevebuttry.wordpress.com
• slideshare.net/stevebuttry
• @stevebuttry
• zombiejournalism.com

3. What engagement is
Community engagement = News orgs make
top priority to listen, to join, lead & enable
conversation to elevate journalism.

4. What engagement isn’t
• Promotion (though it has promotional
value)
• Distribution of content (though you
should)
• Purely a digital pursuit (it uses digital
tools along w/ traditional ones)

5. What engagement is
Community engagement = News orgs
make top priority to listen, to join,
lead & enable conversation to elevate
journalism.

6. 3 types of engagement *
• Outreach
• Conversation
• Collaboration
* Joy Mayer, Reynolds Journalism
Fellow, University of Missouri

7. Avenues of Engagement
• Social media • Content submissions
• Blogs • Interactive content
• Crowdsourcing • Voting, contests
• Breaking news • Comments
• Stories • Schools, groups
• Events • Feedback
• Curation • Print
• Aggregation • Face to face

8. • Connect w/ sources (balance,
disclosure?)
• Check pages of agencies, people on beat
• Crowdsourcing
• Look for people in the news
• Ask for permission to use photos
• Search (not all content is public)

9. • Engage on other pages, not just your own
(and not just to promote)
• Be conversational
• Share links from other sources
• Create a journalist page
• If “friending” sources bothers you,
address in profile

10. • Many more users • Great for breaking
• Much info private news
• Tougher to search • Great real-time
• Not as immediate search
(less frequent • Engagement not as
updates) intrusive
• Engage, don’t • Hashtags help w/
intrude search, conversation

11. • Follow officials & agencies on beat
• Twitter Search (advanced)
• Hashtags (regular & spontaneous)
• NearbyTweets
• Breaking news
• Crowdsourcing

12. Use other social tools, too

13. Why use Twitter?
• It can save you time
• It extends your reach
• It’s an engaging, conversational tool
• It’s great for connecting with
eyewitnesses
• Powerful real-time search

23. Tools to help w/ social media
• Twitter Search (Advanced)
• Facebook search
• Nearby Tweets

24. What is curation?
Museum curator: Journalism curator:
• Studies topic • Studies topic
• Chooses relevant • Chooses relevant
content (other content (social
sources & museum media, blogs, staff)
collection) • Authenticates
• Authenticates • Groups related items
• Groups related items • Provides context
• Provides context • Presents collected
• Presents exhibit content

25. NPR’s Andy Carvin
“I think curation has always been a
part of journalism; we just didn't call it
that.” – quoted in The Atlantic by
Phoebe Connelly

26. Curation tools for journos
• Google & other search engines
• Twitter Search (advanced)
• Other Social media search
• Storify, Storyful, Chirpstory
• Blackbird Pie
• Quote URL

27. Curation sources
• Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr,
YouTube …)
• Blogs
• Staff content (current & archives)
• Other news media (yes, competition)

28. Authenticate & attribute
• Ask: “How do you know that?”
• Ask careful questions of crowd to help
you vet & verify
• Check links, tweets & information on
sources
• Link to original source
• Attribute

30. Blog network
• Covers areas we never covered
• Varied voices
• Recruit blogs overlapping your beats
• Offer clubs liveblogging opportunities
• Neighborhood, church, nonprofit
newsletters

31. Don’t forget IRL
Engage community in person:
• Events
• Community Media Lab
• Tweetups
• Community group meetings
• In work, life routines

32. Why to liveblog
• Immediacy
• News value
• Storytelling
• Traffic
• Community engagement, loyalty
• Interactivity
• Saving time

33. Liveblog formats
• Update (time-stamp, reverse-chron) in
blog or story template
• Use CoverItLive
• Use ScribbleLive
• Live-tweet (on Twitter or feeding blog)
• Video stream (w/liveblog)
• Raw, edited or moderated

34. Tips, techniques
• Short, frequent takes
• Space isn’t an issue; engagement is
• Liveblog becomes notebook for story
• Consider links, polls, photos, audio, video
• Promote live & replays
• Tweet links to liveblog & replay
• OK to step away for question, video, etc.

35. Managing liveblog & print story
• Liveblog is notebook: cut, paste & edit
• Note when you know you’ve written
good lead or passage for story
• Does summary (w/ web plug) work for
print?
• Plug “complete coverage” in liveblog

36. Liveblogging situations
• Breaking story
• Meeting
• Festival, event
• Trial
• Daylong (Election Day, heat wave)
• Sporting event (can use fans, HS journos)
• Live chat

37. Why crowdsource?
• It saves time
• Connecting with sources has always been
one of a journalist’s most important jobs
• You bring more voices to your news
reports
• The crowd knows more than we do
• You engage the community

38. Set the stage
• Build engaged community (follow
people, converse with them)
• Use multiple platforms (Twitter,
Facebook, website, blog, newspaper, IRL)
• Do the groundwork (don’t expect the
public to do your job; invite them to tell
their stories)

39. Crowdsourcing tips
• Say what you know
• Say what you want to know
• Say what you don’t know
• Say what you need to know
• Don’t spread rumors
• Vet sources & information

40. Throughout the process
• Seek story ideas & tips
• Ask questions as you gather info
• Share data with community
• Ask public to continue the conversation

41. Varying situations
• Investigations
• Breaking news

42. @statesman case study

43. Crowdsource

44. Crowdsource

45. Say what you don’t know

46. Varying situations
• Investigations
• Breaking news
• Annual, seasonal stories
• Community info
• Crowdmaps
• Supplement staff work
• Seek photos

47. Read more about it
• stevebuttry.wordpress.com
• slideshare.net/stevebuttry
• @stevebuttry
• zombiejournalism.com