This document provides guidance on using social media as a powerful reporting tool. It discusses best practices such as making your social media profiles findable and contactable, listening on social media to find story ideas, using tools like Twitter Lists and Google Alerts to monitor conversations, searching social media platforms to find eyewitnesses and emerging stories during breaking news, and verifying and ethically gathering information from social media sources. It also covers how to handle errors when reporting on social media.

1. Using Social Media as
Powerful Reporting Tools
Emma Carew Grovum / @emmacarew
Photo Credit: DaveLawler via Compfight cc, bit.ly/1oLxbBb

2. Where are we going today?
Photo by Yevgen Pogoryelov
HOW TO:
• Be findable
• Listen
• Report using social
for breaking news

3. Be findable, contactable
● Can sources and readers find my
information: where I am based, which
newsroom I work in, and what beat I
cover?
● If someone finds my profile, can they
verify my identity easily?
● Do they know that I’d love for them to
contact me with comments and story tips?
● Do they know how to contact me?
https://www.journalism.co.uk/skills/journalists-your-twitter-bio-is-your-calling-card/s7/a595128/

4. Twitter bio = business card

5. Use social media to listen
●Spot story ideas
●Track what’s being
shared by your
network
●Set up Twitter Lists
and Tweetdeck
●Use If-This-Then-That
to automate
●Use Advanced Search
on Facebook, Twitter
By Flickr user Eknath Gomphotherium

6. Reddit rising
https://www.reddit.com/user/alphabetgun/m/news_rising
https://www.reddit.com/user/alphabetgun/m/local_reddit/rising

7. Get alerts from Nuzzel
http://nuzzel.com/

8. Emerging stories on Crowdtangle
https://apps.crowdtangle.com **Not all newsrooms will have this. It’s a paid product.

9. Build better Twitter Lists
https://twitter.com/emmacarew/lists/cqs16/members

10. Build better Twitter Lists

11. Or better yet, let someone else
build better Twitter Lists

12. LIVE DEMO: Build a Twitter List
3 minutes: Build a Twitter List of
attendees
2 minutes: Attendees can subscribe
to my Twitter List of attendees
and make their ‘A’ List of 4-8
core sources.

13. Seek lists that match
coverage areas

14. Let’s try it
●Find a Twitter list to follow on
your beat.
●3 mins: Go to the Twitter
profile of a person on your beat
whom you respect. See what lists
he/she subscribes to. Pick one
to subscribe to.

15. Twitter Lists + Tweetdeck = <3

16. If This, Then That
https://ifttt.com/

17. Facebook Search
http://graph.tips/

18. Posts xyz has commented on
http://graph.tips/

19. LinkedIn Advanced Search

20. ●3 mins: Search for former
employees of Amazon near
Murfreesboro ZIP code 37127.
Let’s try it

22. Knight Lab twXplorer
https://twxplorer.knightlab.com/

23. Advanced Twitter Search
https://twitter.com/search-advanced

24. Search operators
http://www.labnol.org/internet/twitter-search-tricks/13693/

25. Required reading:
NYT’s Dan Victor on social search language:
“Imagine what your perfect source would
tweet, or what you yourself would tweet in
that situation, and search for the words
that would probably be in it.”
bit.ly/victorsearch
Me, my, I

26. • Use words a witness is likely to use.
• Search for “my” “on” and “train”:
What would your perfect
source tweet?

27. Why don’t we talk about Tumblr?
http://www.poynter.org/2013/a-journalists-guide-to-using-tumblr/214081/

28. Why don’t we talk about Tumblr?

29. Who’s doing it well?

30. What do these brands
have in common?
● Niche coverage: Entertainment,
Photography, Music
● Who’s your audience? Tumblr =
fandoms
● Big newsrooms = big social teams

31. Tumblr as a replacement platform
http://newshour.tumblr.com/post/6023357613/newshour-publishes-videos-transcripts-to-tumblr

32. Breaking news - how to:
●Vet/verify social sources, tips
●Research on social during
breaking news
●Gather news on social ethically
●Debunk viral photos
●Handle errors

33. Finding people during a
breaking story
Source: NYDN’s Nicole Hensley https://cdn.tig.as/files/20160314/20160312-dark-arts-pt2.pdf

34. Call-outs on social
https://twitter.com/NPRCodeSwitch/status/748908618578296832
https://www.facebook.com/sharyn.jackson/posts/10157324481135437

35. Reach out to witnesses
http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/reporters-using-twitter-during-a-tragedy-are-doing-that-thing-called-
reporting/273650

36. But reach out with class
https://twitter.com/jbenton/status/649652594613321728

37. How NOT to call out on social

38. Google Forms to crowdsource
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfqX4AaSrG9k-rIu6ri3h2cR3YfVPBCyn8WQ1a_PPEtW4aKsg/viewform

39. LIVE DEMO: Google Forms
5 mins:
●Create a live Google Form
●Create a ShoutKey URL / tweet
it
●Ask group to fill it out
●Show results in real time

40. Go analog: voicemail
http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/06/for-its-new-personal-finance-
podcast-fivethirtyeight-set-up-voicemail-to-hear-from-listeners/
https://twitter.com/NPRCodeSwitch
/status/748908618578296832

41. Geolocating tweets
https://firstdraftnews.com/finding-eyewitness-media-from-an-exact-location-on-twitter/

42. Let’s try it
●3 mins: Find tweets near Murfreesboro
by typing near:Murfreesboro in the
Twitter search box.

43. Hunting down tweets
http://ctrlq.org/first/

44. How to spot fake accounts,trolls
https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/the-case-of-marie-christmas-verifying-eyewitnesses-isnt-
simple-or-polite/

45. Breaking news social roundups
https://reported.ly/2015/12/02/the-san-bernardino-shooting-a-social-media-timeline/

46. User-generated/eyewitness
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/22/bystanders-turn-to-social-media-as-terror-rocks-belgium.html

47. Visual verification tools
https://firstdraftnews.com/resource/visual-verification-guide-photos/

48. Reverse image search
http://www.knowledgecage.com/google-reverse-image-search/12855/

49. Reverse image search
RevEye browser extension for Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reveye-reverse-image-
sear/keaaclcjhehbbapnphnmpiklalfhelgf?hl=en

50. Debunking fake viral photos
http://factually.gizmodo.com/76-viral-images-from-2015-that-were-totally-fake-1747317711

51. Verify shark photos
https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2011/09/02/newsmangled_beware_tweets_about_a_shark_on_the_street.html

52. Verify disaster photos
http://mashable.com/2012/10/29/fake-hurricane-sandy-photos/#nuCjbx.1dOqu

53. View the exif data
http://regex.info/exif.cgi

54. View the exif data
http://blog.storyful.com/2014/01/23/verifying-images-why-seeing-is-not-always-believing/#.VzuH_-eDGko

55. Fake New York Times Op-Ed
posted by Wikileaks
Source: https://storify.com/jcstearns/lessons-from-the-fake-new-york-times-wikileaks-op
FAKE URL: http://www.opinion-nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/keller-a-post-
postscript.html
REAL NYT Opinion URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/opinion/the-crippled-
supreme-court.html

56. Always. Make. Screenshots.

57. Check Snopes.com?
http://www.snopes.com/bernie-sanders-glow-sticks/

58. Correct, delete?
https://www.quora.com/How-should-journalists-handle-errors-in-tweets

59. Slate’s method for correcting
http://www.poynter.org/2014/slates-good-strategy-for-correcting-errors-on-twitter-elsewhere/235681

60. Everyone Makes Mistakes
https://twitter.com/NPR/status/23819307624435712

61. QUESTIONS?
Emma Carew Grovum | @emmacarew
ecg@thedailybeast.comPhoto by Benjamin Reay