How an EU Reporter Uses Twitter
Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 17:42 
On March 30 I had the pleasure to go to an EACD Workshop on the use of Social Media in Political Communications at the European Parliament in Brussels.
Among the speakers was Leigh Phillips (@Leigh_Phillips), reporter for the EUobserver.
Here's a quick account on how he uses Twitter in the context of European Journalism.
Leigh didn't really see the value of Twitter until he discovered Tweetdeck, an application specifically created to manage and work with the Twitter (and other social media channels) "fire-hose" of information but today he find it "As usefull as my notepad and pen...".
When listing his main uses of Twitter for his work he told us that these were the most important applications:
- A strolling reminder of things I need to know about.
- As a source of story ideas. "I had scoops from Twitter."
- To get information, part of the larger story. "As it was the case in the EU parliament robbery story."
- To receive feedback from readers. "There is a real difference between comments on newspaper website and twitter feedback which, in general is politer."
- For getting in touch, finding sources, quotes and people to interview. "Twitter is faster than the yellow-pages..."
As a reporter he is getting really frustrated (like most of us) with robotweets...
He warns that "twitter is also being used by less savory characters and regimes. We need to be careful and check sources. Those same regimes are also using bloggers."
With regards to pitching him on Twitter Leigh says that "they happen but I handle them the same as email pitches... Do it in the morning please...".
With respect to other forms of journalism Leigh had this savory quote to share...
I have as much respect for citizen journalism than I have for citizen brain surgery....
I do not agree with him on that point but he reminded me of a story I read some month ago about new forms of journalism... He is more interested in the idea of "Public Commissioning" where the public at large decides and donates to investigate a certain news topic.
An example of this is YouCommNews where both readers and journalists can pitch stories to each other and gather interest on certain topics.
The resulting stories created through YouCommNews are then available for publication in all sorts of media, "either freely or through the sale of publication rights, in which case there will be refunds to those who funded the journalism".
Definitely an idea to follow more closely and Leigh's input shows us how the job of a reporter is definitely changing because of, and thanks to social media.
How about the other side...? What about good Media Relations use of social media ?
The debate covered other speakers and topic which I will blog about in the next coming weeks. Stay tuned and as always, feedback and comments are more than welcome. Thanks for reading.
