(Sidenote: #wjchat is not affiliated with Wired Journalists, the Ning network I administer for Publish2.)

Here’s a preview of what we’ll be discussing:

• The relationship between programmers and journalists in your newsroom
• Beyond coding skills, what journalists and developers can learn from each other
• General resources to learn skills and specific tips

Elsewhere, Emily Monacelli posted a Q&A she did with me about the topic.

As the guest moderator, I’ll be deep into things during the chat and would greatly appreciate some real-time curation help. Drop a comment below if you’d like to help save the most insightful tweets using a Publish2 Newsgroup I’ve created.

Please join us tonight and help spread the word!

UPDATE: It was a great success! If you couldn’t make it or want to revisit the conversation, read the transcript (this one is a little easier to read).

If you see a blog post titled “10 Iconic Journalists Every J-Student Should Study” and want to share it, please consider what you’re attaching your name to on the interwebs.

At the time of posting, more than 70 people have tweeted the link. That’s fine. Some, most or maybe all of them think it’s worth sharing. No problem there.

But I’ve wondered since last night, when I first saw the link, if people realized what it was: linkbaiting.

Thus, I’m consciously not linking to the post. Here’s the URL if you’d like to see it — just add and change [dot] to a period:

onlinecolleges[dot]net/2010/01/04/10-iconic-journalists-every-jstudent-should-study

This type of linkbaiting is slimy and is meant to inflate the site’s PageRank.

Of course we all want links to our sites. There’s nothing wrong with that. But do you want to be a party to this sort of practice? It’s gaming the web and devalues higher-quality content that receives links organically (somewhat related).

Context

I received an email notification that I had a new message sent through my blog’s contact form at 12:37 a.m. on Jan. 5, 2010. Here are the details:

NAME

Amber Johnson

E-MAIL

amber.johnson1983@gmail.com

MESSAGE

Hi,
We posted an article, " 10 Iconic Journalists Every JStudent Should Study” (http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2010/01/04/10-iconic-journalists-every-jstudent-should-study/), and I thought that you or your readers might find it appealing.
Wishing you Happy & Prosperous New Year

Amber Johnson

I’ve received a few messages like this in the past and planned to disregard this one too. Judging by the approach and complete lack of personalization (that’s right, don’t even use my name in the note, which is probably submitted by some kind of script), I guessed that other journalism bloggers had received also it.

Sure enough, I saw a few links to it on Twitter within minutes. Did they think it was linkbait?

How to investigate

1. What is the URL?

The domain is the first possible indicator. For the “10 Iconic Journalists” post, this should set off the first set of warning bells:

onlinecolleges[dot]net/2010/01/04/10-iconic-journalists-every-jstudent-should-study

Come on, it looks fishy from onset. You probably wouldn’t open an email from Online Colleges, nor would you likely click such a textlink ad in your email program, so why would you want be a relay point for that promotion?

2. What’s on the site?

College-related content and search.

3. Does this content on this site seem out of place?

Does a site called Online Colleges really care what journalism students study? No, they want you to use their service. Look at the other recent blog content. And the email sender was “savvy with their target group — journalists on Twitter — who will tweet and RT the hell out of the link,” as Daniel Petty said in a reply. It’s very smart of them to have authorititave people with strong reputations to generate buzz.

4. Who owns the site?

Whenever this isn’t immediately clear on the about page or in the footer, you should be suspicious. Why don’t they list it?

5. Who owns the URL?

OnlineColleges.net is registered to Stephanie Marchetti of Glen Ellyn, IL. Based on a search of her name and search of her email address, it looks as though she’s registered other similarly named domains, such as graduatedegree[dot]org, mbainfo[dot]com and eduers[dot]com. She owns a total of 51 domains, according to DomainTools.com.

The registrant’s address is a home listed on Zillow (buy now!) and looks to be a nice 6-bed, 4.5-bath house on a 20,000-square-foot piece of property.

After more searching, it looks like she’s married to Michael J. Marchetti, who Forbes and Business Week list as executive VP and COO of Dallas-based Tuesday Morning Corporation.

What does all this mean? I don’t know. I wish I still had access to LexisNexis and Accurint. But now you have some more context.

Note: I couldn’t find anything connecting her to the email address that sent the message to my blog.

6. Who has previously linked to the site?

Search link:URL on Google (substitute the address for URL and make sure there’s no space between it and the link: search operator).

7. Who sent the link?

“Amber Johnson”

8. Is it a real person?

The name sounded like a fake when I first saw the message, so I searched Amber Johnson, Amber Johnson + advertising, Amber Johnson + pr, Amber Johnson + Online Colleges, etc, etc. with no luck.

I also searched that name with the registrants name — without success.

9. If it’s not a real person, who is it?

I searched the email address from my contact form and didn’t find anything helpful until I put quotes around it. After the search, sometime during the 1 a.m. hour, I got one result, which included this:

• 59.99.25.117 of INDIA claims to be amber.johnson1983@gmail.com reported for SPAM

The IP address links to a page with more details, which indicates the email bounced off a telecom company server in India. Not very helpful, but an important step in this investigation.

As I did all this, I was chatting with Daniel Bachhuber on IM (Daniel aptly noted that someone might just be using that particular server to send the message; it might not be the actual computer from where it was sent) and posting a few key details to Twitter (read some of the discussion).

I also searched “amber.johnson1983,” which gave me four results last night, including the one from the above search. Two results showed the same message I received and the other showed a similarly spammy request.

What to do

It’s important to always open links before you retweet or share them online. It doesn’t hurt to check the short URL or text of a tweet or DM beforehand if it’s suspect.

It’s also good to read, watch, listen to or in some other way consume the content on that page before you share (I’ll admit that I too could do a better job of fully consuming the content).

You could also follow steps similar what I did with the “10 Iconic Journalists” post.

Take away the source and context and the big question is, “Does this provide value?” Or, “Does this meaninfully add to the conversation?” Regardless of everything else, I knew from seeing the content that I found this post to have no real value. (OK, maybe just a tad in stirring comments of who should be on the list).

Similar linkbait-for-journalists examples

Journalistics — I’ll admit that their blog is not without some value. But it doesn’t seem like people realize (nor note when linking to them) that they’re blog is meant to advance their product, which is similar to HARO.

• 91 Journalism Blogs and Web site you will love (cached version) [disclosure: they link to me]

The piece that most reeks of linkbait? Best Schools for Journalism post. The post at least adds context that the results are based on the informal poll of 205 people and, without saying so, let’s you know how useless it is.

Learn-gasm — This example is comparable to OnlineColleges.net. Basically, they’re linking to 100 sites in the hope of getting links back to them in order to inflate their PageRank. I recall that they, like OnlineColleges, also asked me to link to them:

• 100 Best Blogs for Journalism Students (cached version)

Conclusion

Don’t take the linkbait. Whether it’s an unknown site that looks spammy or a big site trying to keep their traffic up throughout the day by posting new content with little value, you don’t want to be known as someone who falls for this and, by making the bait-layer successful, strengthening the practice.

What’s the best etiquette? I think it’s ok to send someone a message such as, “Hey, I thought you’d be interested in this” or “I’d love your thoughts on this” and let the person do what they want. They’ll link it on their own if they like it. I’m more likely to not share a link if you ask just because I don’t want to open the door to more solicitations.

For the newsy crowd, journalists shouldn’t include a source or a source’s information in a story without verifying who they are and what they’re motivation is, so why not do the same on Twitter?

Sure, you don’t have to. But with all the noise and what I’ll call chaff-disguised-as-wheat online, why not — as a journalist — do your due diligence when sharing a link? And, sure, you may say a link or RT is not an endorsement, but it might still be perceived as such.

It’s not simply about denying linkbaiters their pageviews and buzz marketing, it’s about your credibility and reputation as a trusted source of information.

Moreover, verifying information or links you pass along is something everyone, not just journalists should do, no matter the medium. And, if you can’t verify it, provide the necessary context (more good reading on that topic).

Link journalism makes context easy in stories online. But the link in itself is not necessarily journalism — it’s what you do to verify its source and accuracy that makes it journalism and, thus, more valuable.

“Because it’s on the web” is no excuse for not verifying. That just leads to low-quality content, of which there’s plenty online. Instead, you should strive for the best quality because there’s so much garbage out there.

Far too often people tweet or retweet something as a knee-jerk, whether they read it or not. It seems that some people have become accustomed to over-sharing links. They might be well intentioned, but I would just like those frequent linkers to think:

• Is this really providing value?
• Is this unique? Specifically, has it been tweeted a million and two times already?

True, we all have different audiences and even having many overlapping followers doesn’t mean you should leave out the others who might not have seen it. We all need to be more discerning about what we share — and we need to know where it comes from.

There’s plenty of linking, but I’d like to see more thinking along with it.

Epilogue

Because we’re talking about links to lists, I’ll also say that all these of specific skills journalists need to have are all well and good, but the fundamentals are more important. Specifically, thinking critically and being skeptical.

UPDATE (3:17 p.m.): A hilarious parody graphic of the iconic journos list from my buddy S.P. Sulllivan.

UPDATE/BONUS LINK (4:50 p.m.): Craig Kanalley on how to verify a Tweet (h/t Ryan Sholin).

Disclosure: I work for Publish2, a company that helps power link journalism. If you think this post is ironic considering the topic, I’d reply “nay.” The purpose of this post is to add value and it is clear who I am, what I’m doing and where I’m coming from. I appreciate links, but I don’t solicit them.

Maybe I’ll even throw in some of the ol’ tips.

As would be expected, I posed a question on Twitter about what I should discuss.

• ckanal: @greglinch Awesome, congrats! Twitter, personal branding + networking.
• AAdamGlenn: @greglinch Def’nly social media (see: http://bit.ly/socmediaskills). But also participatory jurno, curation, entrepreneurship
• lavrusik: @greglinch The importance of understanding the fundamental shift to social news and the need for them to innovate. Sounds flowery, I know.
• MikeHigdon: @greglinch why they should start their own start ups…

(Tweets curated and published with ease courtesy of this and this.)

Thanks to Craig Kanalley, Adam Glenn, Vadim Lavrusik, Mike Higdon and Yuri Victor for their advice. These are all great topics and I hope to touch on as many as possible.

As I read the responses, I thought more about the best approach for the visit. Here’s what I’m thinking now:

• Introduce myself
• Ask students to introduce themselves
• Discuss their interests and goals
• Ask what they want to discuss
• Maybe show some things on the screen
• Challenge assumptions, if warranted

The last point bounced around my head as I asked the question and read the answers, most likely because it was the topic of my Skype video chat with Dave Stanton’s senior-level journalism class earlier this month.

Then I saw this and laughed:

• danielbachhuber: Questioning the assumptions will always produce mind-blowing results.

Daniel and are often on the same wavelength, but this was just a funny coincidence. He sent that tweet via text message and wasn’t responding to me (I doubt he even saw the question).

I will qualify and say I don’t think you will always get mind-blowing results, but we could all use a little more challenging of assumptions now and then. Particularly when it comes to journalism education and how we deal with related conversations.

So let me know what you think of this approach and what would you discuss if you were speaking to a graduate-level online journalism class.

This is in response to a request for advice on teaching a video workshop for high school journalists [Update: to clarify, they already have some video recording and editing experience]. One earlier point I made in the thread was about Web vs. TV. And with that...

Ok, so in general, mostly big-picture tips for videojournalism. Quick follow-up, I shouldn’t have said “Web video” before. I consider this advice more in the non-traditional broadcast style because “Web video” should scale to mobile, TV, Hulu, iPhones, pocket watches (wait, what?), whatever (h/t Chuck Fadely re scaling).

I’m biased toward a documentary-style videojournalism, so here it goes:

• The story rules. If it’s all pretty pictures, make me a slideshow.
• You’re making a video — not taking a video (h/t Kenny Irby, who really brought it home). It’s not yours. You’re just helping the person or people tell their story or stories (h/t Rich Beckman).
• Lexicon is important (h/t Kenny). Just like with making vs. taking, you’re not shooting, killing, chopping anything. And you’re not a shooter. Words matter. You’re better than that.
• Video for Web can’t suck just because it’s online. As Rich says, it should be better because it’s primarily being viewed at a smaller size, which enhances your sense of imperfections. But it can also be viewed full-screen, on TV, etc.
• Shorter = better. But there’s no rule for length. It should be as long (really, as short) as it needs to be.
• You’re not doing soundbites — you need to ask subjects questions so you have them telling as complete a story as possible [Update: As Eric noted in the comments, and I almost included here the first time, this includes making sure you have full sentences. Also, I'll add that you need to the proper context. How? Awesome questions.], which leads to…
• Avoid narration (way too many people use it as a crutch, both on Web and TV). It should be your absolute last resort. Only reason to use it, I think, is if the story suffers without it. Also, somewhat related…
• Ditch standups. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to hear you. I’m watching your video because I care about the subject — not you. Sorry.
• On that note, I don’t really want to see them talking either. More so if it’s just them sitting in a chair, in a boring office, with their boring talking head. The less talking head, the better. If I only see a talking head once, I’m happy.
• Get it in the field, the first time (h/t Jim Virga). Yes, technology allows you to clean up sound and color correct video, but it’s still not going to be as good, it can be very time consuming and it’s lazy [field work]. In that vein…
• There’s a saying that audio is 70 percent of video (h/t Miami Herald vjs). Most people are more forgiving if the visuals aren’t great, but if the audio sucks, they’re probably saying see ya. I can’t emphasize audio enough.
• Headphones. Always. It shouldn’t even need to be on here. And they’re not your be-all-end-all. The audio meter to see levels is your bestest friend in the whole wide world.
• Have the eye of a photojournalist making pictures when you aim the camera.
• Get tons of b-roll. There’s an 80:20 “rule,” which basically means get a lot more footage than you need. Which ties into…
• You may only have one chance to get everything you need. Don’t take anything for granted in terms of interviews and b-roll.
• No canned shots or b-roll. If you ask someone to repeat something they’ve done or do something they plan to do, you’re making stuff up. Sorry. Not good journalism. Any re-enactments, simulations, etc. should, first, be avoided at all costs and, if you must, be clearly disclosed.
• Record mostly in the range of medium and tight, but be sure to get establishing (wide) shots.
• Record sequences.
• Story. Just wanted to make sure you remembered.
• There’s no formula.
• Try interesting angles and approaches (h/t Mike Schmidt). Break outside the “safe” zone (h/t Jim). If it doesn’t work, don’t use it. If it does, cool.
• Your goal should be to use as few (ideally, no) automatic settings as possible (go manual with exposure, white balance, sound and focus) once you’re comfortable with the gear (h/t Jim). I want you to say, “This is my camera. There are many like it, but this one is mine.” You need to explore all the buttons and menus and settings. You need to be able to troubleshoot any problem that you could possibly troubleshoot. When you’re a professional, you can’t make excuses (h/t Jim Virga). No one will want to work with you. If it’s really beyond your control, then it might not be your fault, but you still don’t have what you need. (This is more a problem on deadline.)
• Just because you can create a video full of narrative, doesn’t mean you should. Sometimes, you just need to let the pictures do the talking. If the video can show it better than a person can describe, just leave that out.
• There is no perfect video. It can never really be finished (h/t Jim Virga). You need to accept and embrace that it can always be better. That’s why it’s so important to knock out as much as you can as early as you can. The more time you have to edit and re-edit and re-edit again, the more time you have to get feedback, the more time you have to sleep on it, etc., the better.
• How’s that audio? Just checking.
• Send it to everyone who’s opinion you value or can give you constructive feedback. That’s good for several reasons; namely, it’ll will make you better and it will help get your work/name out there.
• Show your video to the subjects. If they have e-mail, send them the link. If they don’t, go to them with your computer. Again, it’s not for you. It’s for them and your viewers. (h/t Rich)
• There’s no magic. It’s not something you’re born with. It’s almost all skills you can learn with practice.
• You’re doing an important job. Keep at it and kick butt.

Non-attributed parts were learned along the way on my own or by some combination of by lessons from professors Rich Beckman and Jim Virga and professionals (check out their stuff online): Chuck Fadely, Travis Fox, Brent McDonald, Garrett Hubbard, Ricardo Lopez and other people I’ve seen speak. Also from articles and blog posts. Just trying to give proper credit.

Speaking of Travis, some great advice: Ten Golden Rules of Video Journalism.

And great resources:

• NewsVideographer (plus anything in her blogroll)
• Newspaper Video
• Documentaries are great sources of inspiration [we watched parts of several in Jim's class]
• And, of course, video journalism on news sites (NYT, WaPo, MediaStorm and the like)

That got a little out of hand again. Sorry. I wasn’t trying to be comprehensive, so there may be some points left out.

Everyone: What would you add/subtract/take the square root of?

Good luck, sir.
Greg

PS. Yeah, I’ll probably blog this one too. You guys are good, inspiring me to write!

Same question: What would you add/subtract/take the square root of?

Update: I’ve made some minor grammatical changes.

Update 2: People in the e-mail thread have added great insights, such as understanding video for different platforms at a conceptual level, how to plan, how to improvise, etc. Interviewing is huge too. After doing videojournalism for a about two years, I can say without a doubt it has made me a much better interviewer (and listener) after being primarily a text-based reporter for the five years prior.

Whoa, I kinda feel on the spot. Well, um… I’m going to cop out and defer to some smarter people/sites/articles except to say that I think some of the most important things to understand, for this group of already amazing storytellers and journalists, are the fundamentals of what’s changed/how things continue to change in news/media/journalism and everything related to engagement. Challenge your assumptions about how things have been done and should be done and always try to step back and think outside the conventional MSM wisdom.

Sorry, this kinda turned into a brain dump:

1. I’ve been compiling a heapin-o-links. Disregard the guidelines part — it’s basically links for online engagement as it relates or can relate to journalism.

http://www.publish2.com/newsgroups/social-media-guidelines

2. Some interesting presentations here:

http://www.slideshare.net/greglinch/favorites

3. Extremely insightful discussion by two brilliant minds on this podcast with Jay Rosen and Dave Winer (I started from the beginning; almost all caught up. Only 19 episodes so far). [Gah! Forgot to mention "sources go direct" in the e-mail]

http://rebootnews.com

4. I’ve been slowly consuming Here Comes Everbody by Clay Shirky, another brilliant guy (see Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable). Not for lack of interest, just the opposite actually. My approach has been to read a section or chapter or two at a time, usually before bed. That let’s the ideas marinate and gives me more time to think on the details and take more away from it, versus speed-reading more for the big concepts.

http://www.shirky.com/herecomeseverybody

5. Next up on my list is What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis.

http://www.buzzmachine.com/what-would-google-do

6. One specific idea (see all related comments and posts) of “newsroom as a cafe:”

http://www.danielbachhuber.com/2009/06/12/newsroom-as-a-cafe
http://www.digidave.org/2009/02/journalism-business-idea-the-newsroom-cafe.html
http://steveouting.com/2008/02/29/why-news-companies-should-go-into-the-internet-cafe-business/

7. I want to start paying a different kind of attention to the tech industry, specifically hows and whys as opposed to “oooh, that’s a cool  shiny new toy.” Journalism is becoming much more like it as the two overlap more and more.

Everyone, please share any of your favorite links, read, listens, etc.!

Best,
Greg

<exhale />

I'm standing outside the Dallas Morning News building.

• Working on a newsroom social media strategy, best practices and how-to guide with Travis Hudson (more on this in a future post)
• Reporting, including a front page story on the DTV transition and following the story of an abandoned newborn
• Managing the Facebook page
• Occasionally managing the Twitter account
• Occasional online producing
• Worked with more than a dozen journalists, individually or in pairs, to better use social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, etc.
• Helped produce live coverage of American Idol audition coverage, working with another Web producer, reporters at the scene and managing community collaboration and contributions
• Contributing ideas to the interactive team, Problem Solver column and overall organization

And today I filmed a video for a feature, reporting alongside a another Web intern working on the article.

One of my backburner projects that’s now moving to the frontburner is re-imagining and rebuilding the DMN’s John F. Kennedy page.

I’ve been brainstorming and researching since before I arrived and, now that things are kicking into gear, I’d like your help and feedback.

For the first post in this series I’d like your thoughts about the following before hearing mine or anyone else’s ideas:

Current JFK page from 2004

1. Who is the audience/community?
2. What is the purpose of this page/section?
3. What story are is it telling?
4. What’s the best way to tell the story?
5. What content should be included? (More than 45 years later, we have loads of stories, obits, journalists’ accounts, photos, TV broadcasts, front pages, documents, etc.)
6. What do you want to see when you first arrive?
7. How do you want to navigate through this?
8. With all of this, how can we engage people and foster quality conversations?
9. How can we best integrate community content and comments?
10. How can we best keep it dynamic and alive?

The first multimedia committee meeting for the project is Thursday Wednesday (July 29).

Know anyone who may have good insights? Pass it along! Many thanks in advance.

The site was created by 13 undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Miami as part of Rich Beckman’s spring 2009 Seminar in Visual Storytelling class. It’s built on WordPress using a heavily modified Branford Magazine theme. The main feature is an interactive grid, which includes audio clips from the interviews with an awesome group of multimedia professionals, built with PHP, JavaScript and Flash (for the audio player).

A clean and simple home page, with The Grid front and center.

We began the project in late March and launched in private beta in May. Thanks to everyone for their feedback!

Here’s a slightly tweaked description of the site that I wrote for the School of Communication:

There are plenty of Web sites and blogs devoted to multimedia journalism, and many of them are great. But there’s no single hub to discuss, share, critique, rate and learn about the field – including in-depth thoughts from industry leaders. That’s the hole Multimedia Standards aims to fill.

But what about the name: Multimedia Standards? The site offers none. Instead, we offer resources and opinions on everything from “what is multimedia” to “what is good multimedia” and beyond.

Users can listen to an international group experts in an interactive grid; submit and critique projects; find other sites on our resources pages and easily subscribe to them (we provide the RSS feeds); see upcoming events on our calendar; and read about upcoming contests and recent winners. User input, from critiquing multimedia projects to saving links in our Publish2 newsgroup (which feeds to the top-right homepage widget), is key and we plan to continue updating the site with more featured links.

The team

Each student gathered and edited audio and were involved in the planning and research of the site. The class included:

• Deborah Acosta – content team leader
• Walyce Almeida – content team
• Andrea Ballocchi – programming team
• Matt Byrnes – design and programming teams
• Melissa Gerber – programming team
• Andrea Huber – design team leader
• Akilah Johnson – content team
• Shell Jun Zhu – content team
• Greg Linch – producer
• Holly Max – design team
• Brian Schlansky – programming team leader
• Laura Sutnick – design team
• Jesse Swanson – content team
• Rich Beckman – executive producer

The site

We spent a good deal of time early on discussing how to best organize the site’s content because of the nature of the content. The sections/navigation include:

• Summary – a synopsis of all our research from the interviews, including an overview of the topics discussed and thoughts on the future
• The Grid – 10 questions and answers from our interviews; links to profiles, which feature the full interviews
• Resources – RSS feeds featuring multimedia producers, commentators and related organizations
• Submit/Critique – submit multimedia sites and projects for critiques and star ratings by users
• Events – a Google calender with upcoming conferences, training events, etc.
• Awards – information about upcoming awards and recently announced winners
• About – credits, photos and links to individual Web sites, Twitter accounts and e-mail addresses

The Grid

Unfortunately, The Matrix was taken. So we went with The Grid, which features (A-Z):

• Alberto Cairo
• Leo Caobelli
• Pamela Chen
• Andrew DeVigal
• David Dunkley Gyimah
• Kim Grinfeder
• Kenny Irby
• Gary Kebbel
• Tom Kennedy
• Brian Storm
• Will Sullivan
• Ashley Wells

What can I do?

Your interaction is key to the site being more than just a static presentation of our work. For example, submitting and critiquing projects, adding events and more.

Let me know if you’re interested in learning anything more about the site; I’ll respond via the comments or write another post, if the questions warrant. Also, please comment with feedback. How can we make the site better?

Send comments to multimediastandards [at] gmail [dot] com

Looking forward, there’s a second round of interviews in pipeline, which will be used to create a second grid. Although I’ve graduated and won’t be directly involved with that, I’ll be sure to post an update when part deux launches.

• Should a Social Media Editor Use Social Media? (Mashable) — her reply is in the comment section and she has since become active again.
• Using social media is a key to understanding it (BeatBlogging)

Taking a step back, why should any chief social media person even be called an editor? (For the purposes of this post, let’s not debate the use of “social media,” which I happen to like.)

One reason may be so it fits into the traditional print lexicon; thus, it’s easier to understand what that person does because the term sounds familiar. This isn’t horrible, but it’s framing the position in the wrong mindset.

Instead, this position should be established outside the context of any medium. Neither this role nor the person in it should assume the title and implied limitations of a comparable leadership position.

Whoever leads social media at a news org should lead it for all platforms. And one manner that’s often forgotten is (brace yourself) human interaction.

All of this is not to prescribe a universal “social media editor” job description. I actually think that definition is something a news organization should outline on its own. (Like many things, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.)

Thankfully, we have Twitter to help us simplify the various descriptions being proposed. Here’s my less-than-140-character response to a discussion started by Patrick Thornton (@jiconoclast), editor of BeatBlogging.org:

“Social media editor should be a pusher and a user. Moderate, communicate, curate, facilitate & educate.”

I’d recommend reading the other responses, which you can follow and respond to with the hashtag #smed.

How would you define the role of a social media editor?

View my

• My Posts

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Digg

Should a Social Media Editor Use Social Media?

This one is pulling in all the tweets that include pdf09.

Enjoy!