Local media using Twitter

Posted on April 08, 2008
Filed Under: Richmond, Work
Tagged: interactive media division, local, media, media general, news, twitter

nbc4i twitter

I just talked to a co-worker, Ryan Squire, the Managing Editor at NBC-4 WCMH-TV, our NBC station in Columbus, OH. Ryan and his crew recently fired up a Twitter account for the station.

Ryan understands the value of Twitter as a communications tool for the station but he and the staff are taking it one step further by maintaining personal accounts which let you look in on the inner working of the newsroom.

Recent staff tweets include:

LaurenDiedrich: Is working on a super secret sweeps piece!
NBCSquire: Working with the desk to cover several afternoon shoots, including a cat stuck in a tree for 5 days!
Jason_WCMH: Getting details regarding a Washington County deputy that has been shot in the face with a .22 caliber rifle. Suspect is on the loose.

They’ve also received some praise on the270, a central Ohio resource site.

Channel 4 twitters! Much like the Dispatch does.

But what’s so much cooler, is that so does some of WCMH’s employees. I follow them, and it seems like I’m ease dropping a bit as to what’s on tap for the evening news. But that’s a good thing. Because they’re *building a relationship* with me (whether they know it or not). When they say they’re sending the feed of some report for editing, I want to watch it. Thus, I’m going to watch Channel 4’s newscast over the others.

Cheers to Channel 4! Now I’m off to see if the other stations are a cool as them.

Nice work Ryan!

I wonder if we’ll see any other outlets adopt Twitter soon.

Would you follow them?

Comments:

  1. john m (April 08, 2008 at 07:29 PM):

    chpn @ twitter (8/15/2007)

  2. Tripp Fenderson (April 08, 2008 at 11:13 PM):

    Thanks John.

    Nice use of the service. Concise messages and TinyURLs linking back to your content. The only criticism I have is that they all start with “New blog post” making it difficult to read. Why add that?

    I see you have 5 followers so far. Are you able/willing to share any feedback you’ve received about using the service in relation to CHPN?

  3. Tripp Fenderson (April 08, 2008 at 11:42 PM):

    For comparison, I decided to check the Twitter account for WXIA - NBC 11 in Atlanta (a former co-worker is there now).

    http://twitter.com/11AliveNews

    They have the same number of Followers as CHPN.

  4. Kory (April 09, 2008 at 08:47 AM):

    NWEN is on Twitter too.

  5. Tripp Fenderson (April 09, 2008 at 09:11 AM):

    Thanks for the heads up Kory.

  6. Jon (April 09, 2008 at 10:31 AM):

    Great post Tripp! I was thinking about it at some point, but have so many other things going on. Honestly, I like sometimes a lot of the ‘backend chatter’ that you see come on there...knowing that everyone has the same days we have, you know? I honestly dont want to get into the whole ‘new post’ thing that some outlets do (Consumerist, TechCrunch, etc), but maybe a ‘hey a new build is up and we changed this, this, and this)…

  7. Tripp Fenderson (April 09, 2008 at 02:08 PM):

    @Jon - I’d be interested in the occasional message from a media outlet about an interesting story or new site feature that’s being worked up—as long as the message provides value.

    CHPN and NWEN offer narrowly focused content (by geo) and I can see the appeal of being notified of each post.

    What I don’t want is a post about about every new article on a large media site.

    I also love knowing what’s going on behind the scenes.

    For example, I see that Angie Hissong, an assignment editor at NBC4, is working on a Google crime map. Pretty cool to know. I wonder what data she’s going to display and is it related to a story she’s doing.

    Does it give away intentions to their competitors?

    Yes, a little.

    Will I go back to the site and check it out when she’s done?

    Yes, especially if she lets me and her other followers know.

  8. john m (April 09, 2008 at 03:15 PM):

    I added the Twitter feed to see how it went. So far it really hasn’t been much of thing, either because of Twitter’s lack of penetration or the fact that I am not using it to du anything more than announce new posts. I have 4 or 5 people sign up for the weekly email broadcast, while you saw how few folks are following the site via twitter.

    >> The only criticism I have is that they all start with “New blog post” making it difficult to read. Why add that?

    That was the default setting, honestly. I’m using a WordPress plugin & just set it up and went.

    >> I also love knowing what’s going on behind the scenes.

    Me too! This is where Twitter or a good organization blog would have real appeal. With the smaller sites, we kind of hang all that we have anyway; this kind of traffic might be redundant. With a larger organization, there is a lot that would interest folks that I;m sure never sees the light of day.

  9. Jon (April 09, 2008 at 03:19 PM):

    Trip i totally agree with you. For example, I dont ever see us ever putting up a post for ever article that goes up on our site, but I like what Ross is doing with @rvanews, and highlighting key ‘new’ items. For example, im finishing up some major code fixing a lot of things, and may point them out when we finally get them up!

  10. David (April 14, 2008 at 07:08 PM):

    Tripp is Mr Inspiration

    http://twitter.com/WKRG

  11. Tripp Fenderson (April 15, 2008 at 05:05 PM):

    Nice work David!

    Did you slip that one past them and automate your postings or has the newsroom actually bought in?

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