The first ‘in focus’ event organised by Journalism.co.uk looked at social media newsgathering and verification – how can journalists quickly, reliably and ethically work with news from social media?
Speakers included experts from the Associated Press, Storyful, The Dart Centre, Reuters, Eyewitness Media Hub, the Wall Street Journal and the BBC – here are some slides and useful resources from the day:
Keynote from eyewitness media expert Fergus Bell
Check out the live blog from the day, as well as some highlights in this piece.
The Wild West of social media
The panel discussed the challenges of connecting with witnesses on social media in an ethical way, issues of copyright and crediting, as well as the risk of vicarious trauma in the newsroom.
Joining Fergus Bell on stage were: Aine Kerr, managing editor of Storyful; Sam Dubberley, co-founder, Eyewitness Media Hub; Beth Colson, head of news production, the Associated Press; and Gavin Rees, director, Dart Centre Europe.
Sam Dubberley presented preliminary findings of his research into trauma, which revealed that 73 per cent of journalists and 79 per cent of editors said seeing traumatic content is part of their job. Read more about the research here and here.
Gavin Rees outlined some of the things newsrooms can do to minimise the risk. He pointed to the Dart Center’s guide to working with traumatic imagery.
A liveblog of the session is available here, and Journalism.co.uk has also put together a podcast with key points from the event.
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Slides by Beth Colson:
Search and verification workshop
For the second half of the afternoon, the event focused on practical tips and techniques journalists who work with news from social media (and let’s face it, that’s most of us!) should know.
Delegates heard from: Sarah Marshall, social media editor, The Wall Street Journal; George Sargent, social media producer, Reuters; and Mark Frankel, assistant editor, UGC and social news at the BBC.
There is a live blog of the session available here, as well as write-up with the practical tips which you can find here.
Slides by George Sargent:
Slides by Mark Frankel:
Other coverage
Speaker interviews by Caroline Scott, senior reporter at Journalism.co.uk:
Journalism.co.uk also put together a Storify with tweets collected from the event hashtag, #newsrw.
First Draft: Why eyewitness media is central to the future of the news industry
See you in December?
The next news:rewired digital journalism conference is on 1 December in London – check out the programme here and reserve your place now to avoid missing out!
Note: Journalism.co.uk is planning to update this post with more links and slides in the future.
