Use Google Trends to develop story ideas

By Nicole Garner

While working in a television newsroom over the summer, I learned a tactic for finding story ideas for that day's newscast: Ask yourself and colleagues, "What are people talking about today?"

Whether you're working in a day-turn newsroom or starting to scope out ideas for a long-form journalism project, finding out what people are discussing can lead to interesting stories. But how do you do that on a large scale? It has become routine to check out Twitter trending hashtags, but you can also use Google Trends.

Why hashtags are important for #journalists

By Andrew Gibson

Photo courtesy of danielmoyle

One of my favorite quotes about Twitter comes from Megan Garber, an assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab:

"Twitter, like many other subjects of political pique, tends to be framed in extremes: On the one hand, there’s Twitter, the cheeky, geeky little platform — the perky Twitter bird! the collective of 'tweets'! all the twee new words that have emerged with the advent of the tw-efix! — and on the other, there’s Twitter, the disruptor: the real-time reporting tool. The pseudo-enabler of democratic revolution. The existential threat to the narrative primacy of the news article. Twetcetera."

Hashtags embody the dichotomy of Twitter better than perhaps anything else. On one hand, they're a powerful way to restore information order because they let users categorize content with just a few keystrokes. But hashtags are also cultural symbols and have even stretched into spoken conversation. You might finish a sentence with "hashtag awkward" while recalling an uncomfortable experience.

Fortunately, journalists can take advantage of both the fun and the serious sides of hashtags. Here are some tips for turning the funny pound symbol into a powerful online tool.

Live Blogging: ONA Mizzou Meeting 10/20/11

Thanks for coming to our meeting. Tweet @triblocalPat and get on the Mizzou Mafia board.

5:45: "At Mizzou, I should have overcome fears to do events that may seem dull."- Rollens

5:43: Rollens' favorite story- Commercial real estate magazine where he got to travel a lot. Rollens went to Iowa and was supposed to tour a developer. The developer turned a concrete bunker into a great development.

5:39: "I've learned so much about what things people want to read. We use daily hits to see how well we are doing and how stories are doing."- Rollens

5:37: Aggregation has become a big topic with advisor Amy Simons leading the discussion.

5:35: "Our websites are a little text heavy but I always try to find YouTube videos to post. Also our photo galleries are the bomb."- Rollens

5:30: Q: Some things you learned at Mizzou that you use at TribLocal? A: Working on Vox was a great experience. Small, scrappy staff that can work remotely. Sense of camaraderie. Be comfortable wearing a bunch of hats.

5:28: Q: Would you consider advertising to businesses in the area that you run? A: Ad reps go after local businesses all the time. And we hope they convince them to run ads in both print and on the website.

5:26: TribLocal uses Twitter for serious and breaking news. They use Facebook for more slideshows and events like that.

5:24: "I use Twitter to push out news as much as I try to hook in news."- Rollens

5:21: The social media is left to the producers. It's one main Twitter account called @TribLocal.

5:20: "At the end of the day, you have your authority on your website. They don't have their 1st Amendment right on your website."- Rollens

5:16: Q: How would you go about starting a hyperlocal site in a smaller town? A: A simple Blogger or Wordpress. It would help to have citizens participate.

5:15: TribLocal is always monitoring our postings.

5:13: "Their is no approval process for getting an online contribution account. Then I contact the person that signs up. It's help when I perform one on one customer service."- Rollens

5:11: Q: How did you get citizens to write for TribLocal? A: Call up local libraries, park districts etc... and gave them a way to get their message out not only online but in print as well. The OPRF high school do not want to use the website and that's their choice.

5:09: TribLocal journalists are trying to become more and more hyperlocal.

5:08: Citizen journalism, social media, print component all make up TribLocal's cycle.

5:07: "I don't tweet about journalism. I tweet for journalism."- Rollens

5:05: Rollens breaks down his schedule and what he does for the week while working with the TribLocal site.

5:03: Rollens works on Oak Park and River Forest and Elmhurst pages.

5:02: Go to http://triblocal.com/ to follow along Rollens' discussion go to this page. Click on the Find Your Town on a List to see all the towns in TribLocal's web.

5:01: "Social media is a big part of my week. Nice Facebook page as well. Not to share just breaking news but also highlight citizen contribution."- Rollens

5:01: Rollens is a Mizzou grad of '04.

5:00: Rollens met a bunch of ONA people at the conference in Boston last month.

4:58: History of TribLocal: 3-4 years old, since '09 they have been investing time and money into TribLocal.

4:57: The Skype connection has been established with Patrick Rollens.

4:53: Guests start arriving and snacks are put out.

Welcome to the third meeting of the year for ONAMizzou. Today we are Skyping with the Chicago Tribune's TribLocal Community Producer Patrick Rollens.

Tips for evaluating the credibility of real-time information

By Ashley Crockett

Everyone is plugged in these days, consuming news at lightning-fast speed. Even the news of Osama bin Laden's death broke on Twitter before President Obama announced it.

This photo of a shark in a Puerto Rican street after Hurricane
Irene was nothing more than a clever editing job. (Helablog)

At the 2011 ONA Conference in Boston, Craig Silverman and Mandy Jenkins led a session called "B.S. Detection for Journalists," which was full of tips for quickly determining a source's reliability.

For breaking news on Twitter, try to track down who first reported the information. Then, go through this checklist:

- When was the account created?
- Is this a regularly updated account?
- Is there a picture?
- Do they have "normal" followers?
- Do they interact with other users?

If all that checks out, find the person's Klout score, or Google the name and handle of the account. If nothing seems suspicious, contact the user.

This next step is critical: get the person's phone number and call them for more information.

Find out where the information originated. Ask, "Did you witness this? Can you tell me what exactly happened and when? If not, where did you get the information?" Follow up by asking who else might have the information.

Now, you're still not ready to completely trust what you've been told. Look at the tweets leading up to and following the breaking news to see if they follow a logical order.

If that all seems legitimate, contact official sources and search Twitter to see if any reputable accounts are reporting the same thing. Don't forget to try reaching out to your followers for help verifying the information.

The biggest step in determining whether or not you should share the information is answering one question: Is it worth the risk if the information is wrong?

For even more tips for credibility checks online, take a look at Silverman and Jenkins' presentation slides.

Calendar Alert: Hyperlocal comes to Mizzou at 5 p.m. Thursday

Who says major newspapers can't deliver neighborhood-level news? Patrick Rollens, TribLocal community producer, will Skype with us at 5 p.m. Thursday in Reynolds Journalism Institute room 200A. He'll talk about how the Chicago Tribune-owned outlet uses the Web as a medium for delivering information specific to small communities. Who knows -- maybe you have a future in hyperlocal!

Tweet him questions and discussion topics now to @TribLocalPat. He'll answer them Thursday!

Photo courtesy of TribLocal