Now I can't stop

I've talked about social media here and in many different presentations at the Missouri School of Journalism, conferences and training seminars. I feel like all of my ramblings are a little more legitimate as more and more journalists debate on whether these trends are good or bad. Obviously I plant myself into the camp that this is good. Feel free to view my PowerPoint slideshow.

Twitter isnt the end-all be-all for journalism, but I do see it as a growing news tool. The trick, you need to be in there to understand how it works. For the first time, I recommended to all of my students that they should join a few social networks and learn how they work. I started out in Twitter, Blogger, Flickr, YouTube, Motionbox, Vimeo (I could go on) for my personal needs online and I've transitioned that use into ways I can use them professionally. You cannot jump in and think you know how it works. That's how you end up finding reports like this one. It is so easy to fall into a culture of fear. Journalists shouldn't allow themselves to do that. I think we should act like journalists, investigate these tools and see how they can be helpful. People are using them. Let's see how we can use them to our advantage to deliver better news to our markets.

Now I'll try to stop ranting.