So the Hudson River crash occurred just over an hour ago. Already, three immediate lessons on journalism today:
1. News organizations need journalists to spend time on Twitter. The media needs this web presence not only to dispense reliable information. Twitter has exceptional real-time reporting value. Our very first image of the crash was from Twitterer, @jkrums! 2. Twitter journalists should create hashtags. News organizations have the hard-earned advantage of having thousands of followers. They have the most influence and can most easily create the instruments to follow a developing story. The added benefit? If you create your own hashtag, you create a devoted readership. @ColonelTribune started the hashtag #hudsonriver. Not many people were using this tag at the time, but since then, it developed a following and really drove the conversation. The Tribune became one of the foremost Twitter sources on the crash—even if their reporters weren't on-site!I noticed after the crash that Twitterers were using a bunch of hashtags--how was I going to follow them all? If major news outlets jump in and help make consensus, it makes the story easier to follow.
3. Twitter is THE WAVE! I found out about the crash way before wire stories could appear on AP/Reuters feeds. News travels so, so fast. Journalists have to be there first. Journalists have to make it their own.
Final musings: I have always considered traditional newspaper reporting imperfect in breaking news situations. Too many foggy details, the deadline is too fast, it's easy to get facts wrong--and then the copy zips off to print. Reporters up until now have produced first-class coverage in spite of these conditions, not because of. Twitter appears to offer some improvements on this process: immediate and exclusive information with the self-awareness that, at early stages, the facts can indeed change.
First thoughts, there ya go.