Showing 179 posts tagged media

Want to grow a social network to 300 million users? Get journalists to use it, write about it.

soupsoup:

muckrack:

MIT researchers have published some fascinating data on how Twitter grew during its first few years of existence. According to the research, Twitter’s “U.S. growth relied primarily on media attention, geographic proximity of users”.

The story gets particularly interesting when the researchers realized that media attention wasn’t simply a reflection of Twitter’s growth, but a cause of it:

González and Toole said their model of Twitter contagion didn’t fit Cha’s data until they added media influence, based on the number of news stories appearing weekly in Google News searches, data they acquired using Google Insights for Search, which provides historical search-engine data.

This jives with our experience building on Twitter’s API. In late 2008 we founded the Shorty Awards to honor the top content creators on Twitter (now it covers all social media platforms). The Shorty Awards became a trending topic on Twitter within 24 hours of launch, but Twitter itself wasn’t all that big at the time — only 1/3rd the size of Wordpress.com according to Compete. However, since journalists were relying on Twitter to find sources and communicate with each other, they noticed the Shorty Awards, which were quickly covered in the New York Times, BBC and Wall Street Journal without even sending out a press release.

After seeing how many journalists were using Twitter at the Shorty Awards we were inspired to create Muck Rack in 2009 to bring you, as we put it, “Tomorrow’s newspaper, today” — since you could follow second-by-second how journalists at each paper were using Twitter to do their job. We recently followed this with Muck Rack Pro to help journalists communicate with each other, PR people and sources over social media.

If you’re trying to build the next global communications platform, you might want to try to get journalists to use it to do their jobs. Perhaps this is why Google+ and Facebook are both aggressively courting journalists.

Journalists can get listed on Muck Rack and use Muck Rack Pro for free. PR professionals and those seeking to find journalists can try Muck Rack Pro here or request a free demo from our team. 

Huge fan of Muck Rack. Their daily newsletter is one of the most informative and useful things I read every single day.

The Year in News

joshsternberg:

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism released its top stories of 2011.

The biggest story of the year, however, was the economy. As the recovery weakened and Washington engaged in partisan warfare over the debt ceiling, news about the state of the economy jumped to the same level of attention it had received in 2009 when newly elected president Barack Obama passed his controversial stimulus package in response to the “Great Recession.” For all of 2011, the economy made up 20% of the space studied in newspapers and online and time on television and radio news, an increase of more than 40% from 14% of the newshole studied in 2010.

Click through to see what other stories, as well as their reported frequency, made the top stories of the year.

Roger Ailes got super pissed at Sarah Palin

joshsternberg:

This is great:

Sarah Palin’s announcement that she wouldn’t run for president disappointed her legions of admirers — but it infuriated Roger Ailes. The Fox News chief wasn’t angry  about the decision itself. Rather, he was livid that Palin made the October 5 announcement on Mark Levin’s conservative talk-radio program, robbing Fox News of an exclusive and a possible ratings bonanza. Fox was relegated to getting a follow-up interview with Palin on Greta Van Susteren’s 10 p.m. show, after the news of Palin’s decision had been drowned out by Steve Jobs’s death. Ailes was so mad, he considered pulling her off the air entirely until her $1 million annual contract expires in 2013.

A tool might be able to create a shiny artistic jumble for you, but it can’t find you the story in there or explain to your readers why they should care. The essential complexity is not to be abhorred, it’s to be celebrated. So embrace that. Stop hoping for a silver bullet. Learn to program. And remember, no tool will save journalism.

shortformblog:

joshsternberg:

Good post up at Nieman Labs about journalism and technology. 

The secret: Do something cool. But don’t do it assuming it will be the future. Do it because it’s cool. (Fun fact: I knew nothing about PHP until I dipped into SFB. My HTML was rusty. My CSS was outdated. But I still figured it out. Create a reality distortion field for yourself — assume nobody else will do it.)

“

This is not blowhard punditry; Mr. Hayes, an editor-at-large at The Nation, is deep in it right now. On his days off, he works on revisions of his book, due out from Crown Publishing in spring 2012. “The book is about how accelerating inequality has produced dysfunctional elites,” he explained, “which have produced failing institutions and broken the bonds of trust between the people and the leaders of the institutions.”

Up viewers are already familiar with Mr. Hayes’s journalistic side, which translates on-air into a certain writerly wit and a fact-checker’s affinity for data.

”

MSNBC’s Fresh-Faced Chris Hayes Makes it ‘Up’ as He Goes Along | The New York Observer

CNN's Kosik Regrets Occupy Wall Street Tweet As Industry Criticism Mounts | Media Matters for America

Carol Ann Riordan, interim executive director of the American Press Institute, which conducts many journalism ethics events, also criticized Kosik.

“This is pretty basic journalism 101,” Riordan said. “You absolutely do not put in your point of view or feelings about the subjects you are reporting on. It would be one thing if a reporter used Twitter to capture very quickly the events of the news. But saying they ’bang on the bongos’ and ’smoke weed’ or ’the list of whines is too long already’ she not only stepped over the line, she jumped over the county line.”

High-res pantslessprogressive: Occupy Wall Street News Roundup, Sept. 24-25 Police Brutality: Police pen up and mace female protesters [Raw Story] Young man arrested simply for walking down the street [laurasthinkingwithportals] Protester thrown over barricade by police [evanfleischer] Protester shouts, “Is this what you’re about?”, gets cuffed [@LibertyPlazaRev] Officer pushes sitting protester, man stands up, cops arrest him [@LilKing420s] Cops Tackle, Mace Wall St. Protesters for No Obvious Reason [Gawker] In the News:  Occupy Wall Street makes the Sunday cover of NY Daily News [@DhaniBagels] NYPD Silent On Pepper Spraying Of Downtown Protesters [NY1] ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protesters Regroup at Liberty Plaza With Pizza, Tales of Battle [NY Observer] Wall Street protesters cuffed, pepper-sprayed during ‘inequality’ march [NY Daily News] 80 Arrested as Financial District Protest Moves North [NY Times] Gunning for Wall Street, With Faulty Aim [NY Times] Arrests at New York anti-Wall Street protest [Al Jazeera] Protesters march in Manhattan, criticizing Wall Street [Reuters] Police crack down on ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests [Guardian] 80 arrested as ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest of bank bailouts, mortgage crisis marches in NYC [Washington Post/AP] Protesters march in Manhattan, criticizing Wall Street, getting arrested [MSNBC] Dozens arrested in 8th day of ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests [CNN] Police Arrest 80 During ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protest [Fox News] 80 ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protesters Arrested [WSJ] ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protests Turn Violent; Video Shows Police Macing Women [ABC] Wall St protests: Police harsh, media silent? [RT] Occupy Wall Street Calm So Far in Ninth Day [Village Voice] Why ‘Occupy Wall Street’ makes sense [Amy Goodman] Occupy Wall Street rediscovers the radical imagination [David Graeber] Occupy Wall Street’s Leaderless Democracy [The Indypendent] 11 Things You Can Do to Help the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Movement [Alternet] Must Watch: 9/11 first responder occupies Wall Street [evanfleischer] Check out Occupy Together, a new site listing occupation movements across the country. Email NY-based journalists and urge them to cover the protest [inothernews] Watch the Global Revolution livestream. Follow Evan Fleischer for a steady stream of news from the Occupy Wall Street movement. [Photo: Alex Fradkin]

pantslessprogressive:

Occupy Wall Street News Roundup, Sept. 24-25

Police Brutality:

Police pen up and mace female protesters [Raw Story]

Young man arrested simply for walking down the street [laurasthinkingwithportals]

Protester thrown over barricade by police [evanfleischer]

Protester shouts, “Is this what you’re about?”, gets cuffed [@LibertyPlazaRev]

Officer pushes sitting protester, man stands up, cops arrest him [@LilKing420s]

Cops Tackle, Mace Wall St. Protesters for No Obvious Reason [Gawker]

In the News: 

Occupy Wall Street makes the Sunday cover of NY Daily News [@DhaniBagels]

NYPD Silent On Pepper Spraying Of Downtown Protesters [NY1]

‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protesters Regroup at Liberty Plaza With Pizza, Tales of Battle [NY Observer]

Wall Street protesters cuffed, pepper-sprayed during ‘inequality’ march [NY Daily News]

80 Arrested as Financial District Protest Moves North [NY Times]

Gunning for Wall Street, With Faulty Aim [NY Times]

Arrests at New York anti-Wall Street protest [Al Jazeera]

Protesters march in Manhattan, criticizing Wall Street [Reuters]

Police crack down on ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests [Guardian]

80 arrested as ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest of bank bailouts, mortgage crisis marches in NYC [Washington Post/AP]

Protesters march in Manhattan, criticizing Wall Street, getting arrested [MSNBC]

Dozens arrested in 8th day of ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests [CNN]

Police Arrest 80 During ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protest [Fox News]

80 ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protesters Arrested [WSJ]

‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protests Turn Violent; Video Shows Police Macing Women [ABC]

Wall St protests: Police harsh, media silent? [RT]

Occupy Wall Street Calm So Far in Ninth Day [Village Voice]

Why ‘Occupy Wall Street’ makes sense [Amy Goodman]

Occupy Wall Street rediscovers the radical imagination [David Graeber]

Occupy Wall Street’s Leaderless Democracy [The Indypendent]

11 Things You Can Do to Help the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Movement [Alternet]

Must Watch: 9/11 first responder occupies Wall Street [evanfleischer]

Check out Occupy Together, a new site listing occupation movements across the country.

Email NY-based journalists and urge them to cover the protest [inothernews]

Watch the Global Revolution livestream.

Follow Evan Fleischer for a steady stream of news from the Occupy Wall Street movement.

[Photo: Alex Fradkin]

(via karnythia)