Discussion questions for the April / May 2009 issue, along with suggestions for further readings on how Twitter is being used journalistically, the role of copy editors and the pros and cons of conducting off-the-record interviews.

Story 1: "Hitting the Tweet Spot" |  Story 2: "Off the Record" |   Story 3: "The Quality Control Quandry"

The California wild fires of 2007 / Courtesy David S. Roberts on wikipedia
The progress of wild fires was tweeted on a Los Angeles Times Twitter stream in October 2007. (Photo courtesy David S. Roberts)
STORY 1: "Hitting the Tweet Spot: News Outlets Should Use Twitter to Hit Elusive and Valuable Audiences." By Barb Palser  

MORE INFO FROM THE COLUMN:  Twitter, a three-year-old micro-blogging tool, is being used increasingly for news purposes. Since its launch, it's been used to post updates and warnings on the Southern California wildfires (October 2007), to track local crime stories (see the Wilmington News Journal's Twitter stream on crime), to post headlines from news Web sites and to invite suggestions and questions from subscribers. Perhaps most importantly, Palser notes, it can provide a direct link from news publishers to the 18- to 34-year-old audience.

CLASS REPORTING AND RESEARCH ASSIGNMENTS:

  • Invite in a guest speaker or a panel of speakers on any topic, and ask your class to Tweet the discussion. To do so, first the teacher should set up his or her own Twitter account, and post a beginning thread using a # symbol immediately followed by a pertinent slug. (For instance, I used #ClassEx for a recent class exercise.) Students then would go to their individual Twitter accounts, type in the pound symbol and pertinent slug in the status update box, leave a space, then type a sentence or two update on the talk. They should do this repeatedly during the discussion, continually updating their posts in the Twitter stream. They can follow the class discussion by going to twitter.search.com, typing in the #slug, and refreshing the page every few minutes. Teachers should stress that accuracy matters in these postings, with proper names and facts.

  • Ask students to type a 1,500-word research paper on how Twitter is being used by professional and unpaid news hounds to provide news updates. Papers should include proper attribution and informal end notes for citations. Students may include interviews with professional journalists as part of their research.


    RELATED COLUMNS, STORIES AND LINKS:



    STORY 2: "Off the Record," Web-only feature by Jamie McIntyre  

    MORE INFO FROM THE STORY:  As a Pentagon correspondent for CNN for 16 years, Jamie McIntyre attended numerous off-the-record dinners. He writes that he often kicked off the session by announcing his own tongue-in-cheek definition of off-the-record: "Just to be clear and so there is no misunderstanding," I would proclaim in a somber voice, "when we say off the record, we mean not for reporting in any form, (pause for effect).. unless it's REALLY, REALLY good."

    CLASS DISCUSSION AND RESEARCH:

  • McIntyre's playful story raises a serious point: That the definition of off-the-record interviews and how the information collected in such settings is eventually used can sometimes seem at odds. Ask students to research the guidelines and definitions for off-the-record vs. background interviews set by some of the the country's major news organizations -- including the Associated Press, The New York Times, CNN, NPR, USA Today and The Washington Post. Students should type up the definitions and policies for the organizations and be prepared to discuss them in class.

  • Why do some reporters decline to participate in off-the-record interviews, and what can the fallout to a news organization or reporter be for using anonymous quotes collected "on background." Invite in reporters from several professional news organizations to discuss how they've handled interviews collected both on background and off the record. What are their organizations' guidelines for each? And what are the legal issues surrounding use of anonymous sources: Have any of the reporters on the panel been subpoenaed by prosecutors to reveal anonymous sources in court?

    RELATED COLUMNS AND STORIES:


    STORY 3: "The Quality Control Quandry : As newspapers shed copy editors and post more and more unedited stories online, what’s the impact on their content?" By Carl Sessions Stepp

    MORE INFO FROM THE STORY: Buyouts and layoffs at newsrooms in recent years have gutted copy editing and editing staffs. Last year, The Washington Post's ombudsman noted it had lost 40 percent of its copy editors since 2005. As Stepp notes: "journalists and readers alike have noticed flabbier writing, flatter headlines, more typos." The situation is worsened with the pressure to publish quickly on the Internet. This begs the question: How far can newsrooms cut before credibility is lost -- and before a calamitous mistake is published?

    CLASS RESEARCH, INTERVIEWING AND DISCUSSION:

  • What is the job of a copy editor? Ask students to write a 2,000-word research paper, with proper attribution and citations, detailing the job of the copy editor, and chronicling instances in which copy editors have saved news organizations from publishing major errors.

  • Ask students to compare the quality and content of news stories published on the front of The Washington Post during a week in May 2009, vs. a week in May 10 years ago--before the publication laid off 40 percent of its copy editing staff. Students should tally and compare the number of style, grammar and obvious content mistakes in each of the years. They should type up their findings in a memo and come to class prepared to talk about the results.

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    Teachers' guide written and produced by Chris Harvey, online bureau director at the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism and a former managing editor of AJR.

    First item for this issue written April 26, 2009.

    Copyright © 2009 University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism. Permission is granted to freely print, for classroom use, up to 100 copies of the most up-to-date version of this document, as long as the document is not modified.