I like what the Houston Chronicle is doing to aggregate tweets from the community about breaking news stories.
I asked my tweeps last week for breaking news tips for a Twitter webinar I was leading for the Online Media Campus. I got some great answers from a colleague at the Chronicle (some other tweeps responded as well, and their advice will follow the Houston tips and examples).
Blog editor Dwight Silverman has enlisted a “Twitter news army” of people using the #hounews hashtag to tweet about breaking news in the community. Chron.com aggregates tweets from the army that use the hashtag in a “Houston tweets” box on the home page.
“We’re actively recruiting more people to take part in Dwight’s ‘Twitter news army,'” Chron.com Content Director Dean Betz told me in a series of direct messages.
“We feed tweets from our staff and about 50 community members into our homepage using the #hounews hashtag,” Dean wrote. “That lets Twitter serve as a micro-CMS for quickly publishing news and links to video, photos, in real time. We also shamelessly RT breaking news reports by TV and other journos.”
Dean Betz of the Houston Chronicle direct-messaged me some examples of how his staff used Twitter in covering two recent breaking news stories. First, an oil refinery fire:
HoustonChron RT @StephenDeanTV2: Heavy smoke reported at Lyondell-Basell plant 225 and East Loop. Plant claims routine, fire crews responding. #hounews HoustonChron RT @AlexSanz: First reposnders are on the scene of a fire at LyondellBasell. There is a shelter in place for the surrounding area. #hounews HoustonChron Photos of the Lyondell Basell fire, via Houston TranStar: #hounews http://tweetphoto.com/22854489 http://tweetphoto.com/22854508 #hounews HoustonChron Smoke no longer visible in TranStar’s images of Lyondell Basell. http://tweetphoto.com/22855665, http://tweetphoto.com/22855667 #hounews
The second Chronicle story Dean cited was a stormy night:
HoustonChron RT @LOCAL2WEATHER: Severe storm WEST side of Houston near Highway 6 abd I-10. Heavy rain, lots of lightning, warning until 9:15. #hounews HoustonChron RT @mikemcguff: The rain has knocked out the power here! #hounews HoustonChron If you encounter news from tonight’s storms — flooding, damage, power outage — share it with the #hounews hashtag. And please RT! HoustonChron RT @clcktwr: Storms approaching Ft. Bend #qik #hounews http://qik.ly/BQyHp HoustonChron RT @duckunix: Heavy weather brewing in #katy. Power just blinked off. Lots of lighting & thunder, but no rain yet. #weather #hounews HoustonChron RT @LOCAL2WEATHER: Big storms now Hempstead, Prairie View, warning until 10pm for Waller, Montgomery and Harris Counties. #hounews HoustonChron Houston: Severe thunderstorm warning for NW Harris, SW Montgomery, Waller, til 10 p.m. Central. http://bit.ly/cuj6y #hounews HoustonChron RT @smutx2950: @HoustonChron lighting and high wind 249 and cypresswood #hounews HoustonChron RT @crosseyedkat: Power out in Tomball due to storms. #hounews HoustonChron Houston continues under severe thunderstorm watch til midnight. http://chron.com/weather/ #hounews
HoustonChron RT Houston: Severe thunderstorm warning for NW Harris, SW Montgomery, Waller, extended to 10:45 p.m. Central. http://bit.ly/cuj6y #hounews HoustonChron RT @sicilianguy39: Waiting for the strong storms to come.RT @HoustonChron RT @mikemcguff: The rain has knocked out the power here! #hounews HoustonChron RT @katdelia: Storms just hit Cypress a few minutes ago #hounews
Though Betz provided the most help, others chipped in with tips and examples of Twitter use for covering breaking news:
Nathaniel Miller, online content developer at Sacbee.com:
journalistnate @stevebuttry Had the idea to use Blackbird Pie to implement user-generated twitpics at crime scenes for our Sacto 9-1-1 blog. stevebuttry Cool! Link? RT @journalistnate Had idea to use Blackbird Pie to implement user-generated twitpics at crime scenes for our Sacto 9-1-1 blog. journalistnate @stevebuttry Not yet. Had the idea while looking at nearby tweets before bed this week. Saw twitpic of cops who blocked the road.
From Chris Keller of nwi.com:
ChrisLKeller @stevebuttry: I covered the scene from an execution back and December and found twitter as a great way to gather and broadcast information. ChrisLKeller @stevebuttry: Some newspaper staff just earlier this month told the stories behind Primary elections via Twitter. Worked very well.
Iowa State University students Dylan Boyle and Brian Smith also gave a couple examples of stories where they used Twitter:
smithbm12 @stevebuttry Don’t have links, but @iowastatedaily used Twitter heavily in April when the body of a missing student was discovered. Dylanisblue @stevebuttry We used twitter a ton during Veishea, for vids and pictures. I used @firstamendmentday on my phone to live tweet that event
Nancy Raffensperger Newhoff, editor of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, noted that during my webinar her staff was using Twitter with CoverItLive to cover the Iowa girls’ high school track meet.
Here are the slides I used for the webinar:
Twitter was crucial in alerting us to and collecting eyewitness reports from an incident on the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga campus last spring:
http://chattarati.com/neighborhoods/utc/2009/4/23/updated-police-officers-use-pepper-spray-utc-stude/
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Myself and a group of journalists at competing publications arbitrarily came together on Twitter for a link sharing project in 2009 (we were covering major floods in our region) and have congregated on Twitter ever since to share info:
http://blog.publish2.com/2009/01/09/networked-link-journalism-a-revolution-quietly-begins-in-washington-state/
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