Takeaways from the Reported.ly team’s #wjchat session on Twitter
Reported.ly is a news reporting outfit that lives on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Medium, and Storify. It’s run by former NPR social media strategist Andy Carvin and funded by First Look Media. Last night, Reported.ly team members Andy Carvin, Kim Bui and Wendy Carillo took to Twitter’s #wjchat forum to answer questions on workflow, tools and ethics of social news curation. Here are some of the takeaways.
Andy Carvin started by laying out how reported.ly functions:
@wjchat There are six of us on the team, and we all serve as a combination of online news anchors, reporters and editors. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@wjchat We focus on using social media for newsgathering purposes, and for producing news for social platforms. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@wjchat Rather than focusing our energy on producing on our own site and using soc media to direct ppl there, we stay on social. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@wjchat We'll eventually have a site to aggregate our work, but our focus is on publishing directly on existing social platforms. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
How does the team work around the world?
@wjchat There are 6 of us spread across 10 timezones. We often work in pairs on a buddy system… #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@wjchat Our EU folks start working at 3am ET, and we keep going until west coast wraps up 18 hrs later. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@wjchat Different team members also have different beat experience (mideast, civil rights, etc) and tech skills. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
Should reportedly staffers tweet news on personal accounts?
@kimbui @AdrianaMaestas Yeah, I’m a strong believer that your personal twitter acct should be your professional acct too. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
We asked about reported.ly’s tools. Twitter lists are incredibly important.
@aleszubajak We're big users of Twitter lists. Literally hundreds of them on different topics, countries, etc. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@AprilBethea We don't make new lists often; we're augmenting them w/ new users + prioritizing different lists. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@KanhemaPhoto Analytics hasn't been our #1 priority. Establishing our communities and storytelling style has. That'll be next. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
Reported.ly addressed some of the pitfalls of relying on a social media audience.
@AlexandriaHoff Though that assumes you have the same followers paying attention all day. In our experience it's more dynamic. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@AlexandriaHoff So we routinely repeat updates throughout the day since we know we have a global audience. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
The conversation turned to verifying material and sources on social media. Google image search, and TinEye reverse image search “are our main tools,” said Carvin.
@wjchat Lots of triangulation. Cross-referencing footage via geolocation, reverse image search, asking users to review stuff, etc. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@wjchat I've learned a lot from this team. I've always used reverse google image search, but I've added geolocation, map comparison. #wjchat
— P. Kim Bui (@kimbui) January 29, 2015
@wjchat We pay close attention to who follows who, how they know each other, what they share, etc. Network analysis, basically. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@wjchat Google image search and tineeye are our main tools. We also analyze photo content to match them to landmarks, on maps, etc. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@wjchat I also do a lot of satellite image analysis to ID locations of photos. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@wjchat time is also of the essence w/ image searches; if you wait long, results cluttered with RTs, etc. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@wjchat Google Translate is a starting point, but too often it's not reliable. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
Sources need to be verified. Mistakes must be stood behind.
@wjchat You can trust plenty of sources to be sincere. But everyone makes mistakes. One source never enough. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@kimbui which is why being transparent about our mistakes is so important. Own your mistakes, period. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@oskargarcia I was at NPR when we learned that the hard way when we reported Gabby Giffords died. Or think CNN & the Boston bombing. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
And sifting through graphic material can take a toll.
@wjchat: I saw hundreds of graphic clips from Syria, Libya, etc. Definitely wasn't healthy or wise. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
David Clinch from Storyful jumped in about verifying and coping with graphic material.
@wjchat we watch graphic video every day at @Storyful and we make sure our team has the resources to handle the effects. #wjchat
— David Clinch (@DavidClinchNews) January 29, 2015
Other tools used by reported.ly staff:
@wjchat Toolbox faves: @COeverywhere, @gramfeed, StorymapJS, Spundge, Tweetbe.at #wjchat
— P. Kim Bui (@kimbui) January 29, 2015
@wjchat Gramfeed, CO Everywhere, EXIF data tools, Google Earth (for image analysis), sometimes Gephi for social network analysis. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@wjchat But my greatest gem in my soc media toolbox is my Twitter following. They know pretty much everything. 🙂 #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
On using Reddit:
@AprilBethea I use it sometimes to find new information on stories, and I want to get more invovled w the subreddits andy mentions #wjchat
— P. Kim Bui (@kimbui) January 29, 2015
@AprilBethea We also used reddit to live-blog the #SOTU, which was a really great experience. #wjchat
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) January 29, 2015
@AprilBethea I'm excited to useReddit more. We should be a part of that community, which is why I'm using my old, personal username #wjchat
— P. Kim Bui (@kimbui) January 29, 2015
OK! That's all the time we have for this week. A huge THANKS to our hosts from @reportedly: @acarvin @kimbui @wendycarrillo! #wjchat
— wjchat (@wjchat) January 29, 2015