Beat Reporting Via Social Network

NewAssignment.Net is working on a journalism experiment: Beat Reporting With a Social Network:

“Beat reporters have always had networks of sources, of course, but the sources haven’t been connected to one another, or able to self-publish; they haven’t been social networks at all. And we didn’t have the easy tools for Web-based collaboration that we have now, like group blogs, wikis, Facebook groups and so on.”

“To better understand the difference, take the Rolodex of a typical beat writer and imagine all the scattered but well connected people in it wired together. Pooling their knowledge for the good of the beat, they also get something from participating in its daily buzz; it’s river of news. We haven’t “always” had a reporting system like that.”

Leave a comment