Image: Missmac/Flickr

Impressed with the buzz that Baum’s tweeting generated in journalism circles, I immediately thought about what this does for his personal brand and the personal branding lessons that journalists can learn from this exercise. I have a post exploring that very topic at Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding Blog.

I was pretty excited to write about this because I rarely see personal branding content that is either 1) geared towards people who work in news; or 2) written from a journalists perspective. I’m thrilled to have worked with Schawbel to discuss personal branding from this perspective.

There are tons of reasons (here are some) why it’s important for everyone to give personal branding at least some consideration, but for journalists who face uncertainty with employment while the industry undergoes significant changes, personal branding can truly distinguish candidates in the job market, whether it be in the news industry or in a different area.

So what do some journalists think about Dan Baum’s use of Twitter for personal branding? Just check out my post. I’d love to hear what you think.

The site has two main goals: 1. to help people enhance their worldview or perspective of global events; 2. to increase dialogue about international news and make the world smaller through conversation and interaction, both on this site and on Twitter.

The philosophy behind the site is “hyperlocal gone global.” There is an emphasis on what is happening in a specific place at a specific time and looks at how people are reacting to that event(s) in the area.

Barbara Iverson recently wrote about the site–which launched at the beginning of this year–for Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits:

[Breaking Tweets] is associated with the account Twitter.com/breakingtweets, but it takes Twitter messages to a new level. The site has just added Breaking Tweets Entertainment and Breaking Tweets Sports, and will soon add Breaking Tweets Chicago…

Breaking Tweets has human editors who manually select messages for inclusion in their stories. Furthermore, the editors treat the Tweets like quotes, weaving the 140 character missives into a comprehensive story on a news topic.From a “virtual newsroom,” the team keeps connected via e-mail and online.

Last month, BeatBlogging.org’s Lily Q interviewed BreakingTweets.com founder Craig Kanalley, a journalism grad student at DePaul University (the staff listed on the Breaking Tweet’s site mostly consists of journalism students).

Kanalley tells Lily that he first got the idea for the site after he “saw the amount of people twittering about Election Day and how Twitter can serve as a place for breaking news, very personal feelings and eyewitness accounts.”

A few more snippets from Kanalley:

Tweets are great because they are short, quick and, in many ways, they are just like quotes that journalists would often use anyway. They are instantaneous and, as a result, they work well with news in general, also across a wide geographic scope.

Breaking Tweets changes the practice because it focuses on editing the Web. There is so much clutter out there but it takes it all and seeks to make sense of it. I think a well done Breaking Tweets story can be just as valuable as a longer form traditional news story on the same subject. It gives a different glimpse into the story.

See the full interview here.

Don’t let the name fool you though, Breaking Tweets is not intended to “break the news.” In a blog post, Kanalley writes, “The point of the site I put together is to chronicle the biggest news around the world each day and put a Twitter spin on it by personalizing the news through tweets.”

But the site actually did scoop the BBC and CNN last week.  Read more about that here.

Breaking Tweets logo/BreakingTweets.com

Some observers say Twitter — a micro-blogging site where users post 140-character messages — has become a hotbed of unnecessary hype and misinformation about the outbreak, which is thought to have claimed more than 100 lives in Mexico.

“This is a good example of why [Twitter is] headed in that wrong direction, because it’s just propagating fear amongst people as opposed to seeking actual solutions or key information,” said Brennon Slattery, a contributing writer for PC World. “The swine flu thing came really at the crux of a media revolution.”

This really pressed my buttons. I’m a pro-Twitter social media enthusiast (clearly been in DC for too long if I am describing myself as pro-Twitter…) I also write about global health. I spent the morning aggregating news about the swine flu (apparently not actually swine flu) situation, and I also tweeted about it.

Some thoughts:

It’s a Cocktail Party, Not a News Conference

I understand why people turn to Twitter for news. It’s a comfortable space. You select who you follow and only click on the links that REALLY interest you. However, just because someone links it or tweets it doesn’t mean it’s fact. You’ve probably heard the analogy: Twitter’s like a cocktail party, you can choose which conversation you listen to and decide when you want to participate. When describing the site, I find that this holds up pretty well. So if what you’re doing on Twitter is selectively listening to and participating in conversation, then the level of authority of the information you receive on the site depends on who is saying it – Twitter is not a news source, but news is available on the site.

People who have always been savvy news consumers get this. As for the rest, a new medium means a new learning curve. So give it time, and people will begin to rely on Twitter more appropriately.

With Twitter, People Misunderstand in Public

During pandemics and other situations that cause widespread concern, people panic and rumors start. Before Twitter, people were getting this information from somewhere else. They were also sharing the information differently and there was probably the same level of misunderstanding, the difference now is that they’re tweeting and re-tweeting it, and it’s public and searchable . This actually might be a good thing, because it allows information to address public misunderstandings more accurately and quickly. For instance, Twitter highlighted which swine flu rumors were gaining traction. CNN writes:

Unofficial swine flu information on Twitter may lead people to unwise decisions, said Evgeny Morozov, a fellow at the Open Society Institute and a blogger on ForeignPolicy.com.

For example, some Twitter users told their followers to stop eating pork, he said. Health officials have not advised that precaution

Enter News 2.0

Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute is right. In the article, he said, “That information needs to be put in context by journalists, especially given the fact that so many deaths from the common flu occur each year and go underreported by the news media.”

But that’s really only where it begins.

Modern journalists need to help people navigate information overload, sift through the garbage, and identify great information. They should also be expanding on the story. The decentralization of news gives us the opportunity to pursue really interesting angles. In this regard, the Web is actually a gift to journalism. Content is exploding, allowing journalists to do what they do best – vet, think, create and explain. Questions about what type of shape and model this sort of journalism will take on are relevant, but they’re also the substance of a seperate discussion.

As I read through the article, it continually proved the need for news organizations to intimately engage with social media. When crises do happen (and even when they don’t) new organizations must have the infrastructure in place to speak with a loud, authoritative voice. They need to have the networks in place to cut through the chatter and reach people who might not always read their content. Otherwise we’ll keep reading articles like this one, which really just describes the misuse of a tool.

Image: Matt Hamm/Flickr

This post, which was originally published on The Schiff Report, describes how it happened. Click here to see the original post and comments.

It was President’s Day. I was off work and traipsing around on Twitter. Ok, I guess you can’t really traipse there in a literal sense, but I was doing the virtual equivalent. MSNBC was on in the background. Luke Russert comes on. He’s interviewing Bill Clinton. I look up.

Something about advice for young people in this economy? I don’t really remember, but then as the anchor was closing out with Russert, something caught my ear. The anchor said something about how people can connect with Russert and mentioned Twitter. Russert then said something like, “I’m not on Twitter yet, still looking into that.”

Still looking into that?! That’s the sort of response I might expect to hear from a 60 year old. I hit the keyboard and in fewer than 140 characters I tweet some version of what I’m thinking:

Immediately I get some responses. A few DMs, some @replies. Some interesting tweeting ensues. Here’s a selection:

henrim @jwschiff how is that absurd? The youth population on Twitter is not at all representative the rest of youth population.

jwschiff @henrim it’s not about representation, but huge part of the Gen. Y story is technology, social media, seems silly not to monitor that part

KathleenLD @henrim agreed. The youth demographic on Twitter is not representative of youth as a whole. More tech/journ heavy than the general pop, even

jwschiff @KathleenLD @henrim don’t you think it’s a problem Russert doesn’t have access to this convo? Twitter isn’t everything, but imp. 2 follow

henrim @jwschiff @KathleenLD we are overachievers, hyper-connected, overely-political geeks… i say that in the nicest way possible.

jwschiff @henrim yes, but u don’t think with the thousands of twittr articles there’s a youth angle? and if not, that’s worth reporting too

henrim @jwschiff @KathleenLD I would gladly give up the youth angle coverage on twitter if he covers college cost/debt in more dept.

Some other thoughts:

Nextvoice247 @jwschiff he cvers youth issues as an observer & not actve participant; “sees” youth, but finds himself n role of old guard w fresh face

nishachittal @jwschiff interesting about Luke Russert. But I think most journos still dont get Twitter. Just look at @andersoncooper or @gstephanopoulos

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

So @henrim and @KathleenLD have valid points. Yes, those of us on Twitter are part of a small group of the “youth” demographic or pretty much any other age group. But we’re also part of an emerging trend, and that’s a story.

But here’s the gist of why I was shocked to hear that Russert isn’t on Twitter:

As an NBC News correspondent-at-large (bio here), he is tasked with reporting on stories with a youth angle. NBC brought him aboard just as the presidential elections were heading into the home stretch and announced that Russert would cover the youth vote during the election cycle.

Social media is a huge part of some of these stories. Russert even talked about the importance of the Internet angle. Gen. Y and younger generations are notriously plugged in and spend a lot of time interacting online. A journalist who is on a youth beat needs to be monitoring what happens online, this MediaShift post raises a lot of these issues and at the very least shows that Twitter is a part of the conversation.

Twitter certainly isn’t the entire story, but leaving it out is like covering a school district and only attending official meetings. Good reporters would dig deeper. They interact with students, parents, teachers and administrators in a variety of settings. They pay attention to informal channels, off-the-cuff remarks and read between the lines.

In all fairness to Russert, he is blogging, kind of (no updates since October and very few links, posts look like articles). But seriously, I don’t know what he’s up against with bureaucracy and other barriers at NBC. Perhaps contracts and other things prevent him from being enterprising in this way, and he only graduated from college last May! He also freely admits that nepotism certainly plays a role in how he ended up in this gig — in October, he told MediaBistro, “Did my name get my foot in the door? Absolutely, I’ll be the first to admit that. But has my performance and ability got my butt through the door? Yes.”

But with all that considered, I think Russert would have been better off if he were plugged in and paying attention.