Adding Twitter to your tool box - a journalist's point of view

Guest post: Greer McDonald is the social media editor for New Zealand’s largest news website stuff.co.nz. She is also an award-winning journalist and writes a column for The Dominion Post, focusing on the role social media plays in our lives.In a world where most people are creators of content and aggregators of news, there’s a lot of discussion about whether or not there’s still a place for journalists amongst the noise.Social media users are highly connected people and are on the upper-end of the news consumption curve. They need, want and simply must be in the loop about the happenings in their community – that’s why they’re there, engaging or lurking as they do.But in these localised social media communities that we’ve made, we’ve also created hierarchy and roles. Twitter is just one big never-ending episode of Lost (I’m kidding, but the principals are the same). Since I joined Twitter, years ago now, I’ve unwittingly become one of the many “verifiers” amongst the chatter. Users frequently contact me when they’ve heard rumours, or seen something, want more information or feel strongly about an issue. They alert me to things they think I should be aware of because they think it’s important that mainstream media follow things up and make it known to the (often non-tweeting) masses. You see while non-mainstream media blogs and content creators have a very real and very solid place amongst new media, there is still a role for the humble mainstream media journalist also. We have big companies behind us who will fire us if we’re consistently wrong and most importantly, we have a code of ethics that we abide to and which mean users have the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.I’m not saying we get it right all the time, or that we follow up every single thing that’s brought to our attention, but the very real truth is that not everybody is a journalist. We have trained, for years, to do what we do. It’s a trade. Much like someone who fixes a broken pipe once isn’t a plumber, someone who can string a sentence of words together isn’t a journalist. (If they can though, they should really think about a career change – journalism is awesome!) But our roles are changing. More often than not nowadays, trainee journalists are expected to come to newsrooms with a multimedia arsenal of understanding at their disposal. Gone are the days of “newspaper” journalist or “television” journalist. Now, you’re a brand - a brand that represents your company - and on any given day you will be expected to write, commentate, blog, moderate, shoot video, edit audio or interview at a moment’s notice.So is having a presence on Twitter going to add to your arsenal? Absolutely. It is a simple, cheap way of making connections that you would normally spend years building up if you were a journalist a decade ago. More importantly, it serves as a medium which I think makes you a better journalist. You’re forced to remember all the crucial lessons you learnt – such as fact checking, verification, spotting good yarns and other newsgathering techniques – in a new and exciting way. It’s up to you how much you make it work for you.