In "Citizen Journalism," Paul Lewis discussed the value of Twitter in locating sources for particular stories. While our story was more accidental, Twitter turned out to be just as useful in finding sources for us.
In 2014, my staff was working on a story about how the athletic success in our school district was attracting more athletes to our schools, which had within the last couple of years just become open enrollment. We had seen a tweet by an Indiana high school student, Dalen Dorsey, about his excitement about moving to the Valley and enrolling in Corona del Sol. He was a basketball player and we had just won our third consecutive state title. My reporter reached out to him via Twitter (image above) to conduct an interview, and we used his quotes in the story. Dorsey indeed moved to the area, enrolled at CdS and is a member of the basketball program. His quotes provided a perspective to the story we wouldn't have had had we not decided to reach out to him via Twitter. In fact, if it weren't for Twitter, we wouldn't have known anything about him.
I don't let my students conduct an interview via Twitter (except in an extreme emergency) but the DM (direct message) feature has proved very useful when we've had difficulty finding students on campus (usually as a result of an absence) and we needed to contact them in a timely manner.
Kris Urban
Corona del Sol High School
Tempe, Ariz.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. At Cronkite News, we've had luck messaging people via Facebook and LinkedIn as well. Ain't the Internet grand? So much easier than using the phone book (a term I have to explain to some students).
ReplyDeleteSteve Elliott
Arizona State University
Phoenix
I absolutely love that scene in "All the President's Men" when Woodward and Bernstein are in the Library of Congress looking through piles of phone books for sources. Not only is the inside of that building absolutely beautiful and the shot breathtaking (especially for the 1970s), but the kids are really confused by what they are doing.
ReplyDeleteKris Urban
Corona del Sol High School
Tempe, Ariz.
I also love the aerial shot as Woodward's car leaves the Post parking lot and they set off looking for sources.
ReplyDeleteSteve Elliott
Arizona State University
Phoenix
We've had several instances of Twitter alerting the larger adult community to "current events" among our students, so I can see how it could be a great starting point for story ideas as well as sources. I can also see a crowd sourcing aspect to something like Instagram if news happens without a staff member present.
ReplyDeleteCarver Weakley
Cosby High School
Midlothian, Virginia
We've had several instances of Twitter alerting the larger adult community to "current events" among our students, so I can see how it could be a great starting point for story ideas as well as sources. I can also see a crowd sourcing aspect to something like Instagram if news happens without a staff member present.
ReplyDeleteCarver Weakley
Cosby High School
Midlothian, Virginia
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ReplyDeleteThat is such a great idea to use Twitter to contact students that you can't find on campus; how perfect that would be for those last minute details needed for a story. My students have stayed up to all hours of the night before, just to hear back from a source. Twitter could help with that.
ReplyDeleteEmily Sell
Bingham High School
South Jordan, Utah
My students do not use twitter even when our new principal has tried to encourage them to post the good things happening at the school (he set up accounts for us-hence my handle has my school name). But I think that to communicate. Kris's story is fantastic! Generally the phone and even email seem obsolete to my students who often text or use snapchat to communicate.
ReplyDeleteI actually think that for those just setting out with Twitter, using it as a way to collect information rather than share it is a good entry point. Clearly, it's meant for sharing information as well, but I think once you've had success with using Twitter as described in this post, you start to see what else you can do with it. When I encourage (read: beg) my students to go on Twitter, I tell them that they don't need to post anything if they don't want to. They just do things like this. But eventually, they come around and want to utilize its potential more.
ReplyDelete