When news broke about the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut last month, those on Twitter were some of the first to hear about death counts and momentum in the investigation. We all know Twitter is one of the best tools for engaging with a story, but as the news unfolded, so did the corrections. It’s a good time to reflect on some best practices for reporting on Twitter. As we come upon the one month anniversary mark for Sandy Hook and deal with new tragedies this week like the hostage situtation at a Los Angeles mall to a ferry accident in the East River, here are five things to keep in mind when big news breaks.

1. Facebook Is Not Your Friend

Most corrections resulted from faulty Facebook searches for the alleged shooter. Even as law enforcement insisted they had yet to confirm the identity of the shooter, news organizations like The Huffington Post, Gawker, Buzzfeed and even cable news organizations began posting pictures of Ryan Lanza. And they were all wrong.

Facebook has never been championed for its search capabilities. Despite the fact that Facebook’s speciality is connecting, it’s often easier to Google someone for their Facebook profile than it is to use the social network’s search bar. Even a simple search for your best friend’s rather particular name can turn up over three pages of results. You’re a reporter, not Sherlock Holmes. Use Facebook for clues, but don’t bet on the fact there is only one name per city when news breaks.

2. Read Your Retweets

We’ve written about the dangers of relying on retweets as a journalism strategy. But the fact that a lot of users are retweeting without clicking through doesn’t mean you should, too. News is breaking but take the time to read the articles before you click. Most times, the wrong information passes quicker than the correction. Retweet responsibly.

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There’s a fine line between spam email and PR pitches when it comes to emails that land in reporters inboxes. Both of them can inundate the receiver and slow them from finding or seeing important messages.

As a reporter and blogger, I can’t even begin to count the number of misdirected and unhelpful messages I’ve had to wade through to find the actual messages that are relevant. I know I’m not alone when I get the umpteeth email about an event or release on legislation states and topics far away from anything I have covered or would ever cover. (Dear PR folk, it’s even more annoying when you misspell my name.) But it happens all the time, both on my work and personal email. Sometimes, these are just an influx of emails from an agency or group I want to receive messages from, such as the state Attorney General or New York Times, but that I don’t necessarily need to see immediately. Often, however, the messages totally miss the target and come from groups I’ve never heard of and certainly never signed up for.

I wanted to give some quick advice on how to make these messages more manageable. In a word? Filters. These will help move those less important messages out of your inbox and to the trash or to a folder for later perusal. I personally use Outlook (2012 on a Mac) and Gmail, so that’s what I’m going to explain here. However, most email programs and sites allow some form of filtering or rules, so the mechanics will be different, but the general idea should be similar.
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Note: This is the first in a series of posts I’ll be sharing on some “basic” web reporting tools, tips and tech skills that journalists new to digital tools may find useful but may not know about or may be embarrassed to ask about. Often, we cover the latest tools and trends on this blog, but for new journalists or those just getting comfortable with using the web or data as a reporting tool, these will hopefully give you a good introduction to build from. If you have something you want covered or an idea of something you think we should explain (for example, that question you’ve had to ask colleagues about — or answer questions about — a dozen times already) please send me a note @meranduh or meranda@merandawrites.com or add your idea in the comments below. If you want to track these as they’re added, they’ll be under the tag “basics.”

WHOIS can be a useful, though often overlooked, tool for journalists. But what is it? Basically, WHOIS allows Internet users to find out who is behind a website by letting them access the information about who registered a given domain.

Depending on the registrar and how the domain registrant set up the domain, this information includes the name/business and contact information, including phone, email and address, of the person who bought or owns the domain. Some registrars allow users to register their domain as private, and some domain owners register their domains through proxies. In both cases, that essentially blocks the information from being public. But if the person didn’t pay extra to register private or through a proxy, this simple search basically tells you who bought and owns the site, when, who hosts it and how to get in touch with them. (Technically, registrants are not supposed to lie because that could cause the register to cancel the domain.)

All you need to know is the URL of their top-level domain (this only works for domains, not websites hosted on another domain), which you pop into any number of free WHOIS search engines. There are probably thousands of sites that offer the service, including most domain registration services. I like this one at DomainTools.

So, how is this stuff even useful to journalists? Here are a few scenarios:

• There’s a new website you came across that someone — you don’t know who — posted with outrageous claims about some company, school, city, person, etc. on your beat. Who is behind this site? When did they register the domain? (Is it recent in response to something that just happened, or are you just stumbling on it?) How do you get in touch with the creators to get more information?
• It’s election season and websites are going up left and right for and against issues and candidates. Who’s behind the pro and anti ISSUE X domains? They obviously have a stance on the issue and may be a good source. Got a PAC that’s funneling money or ads into one of your campaigns? Do they have a website (even an email address @domain.com with no active website can be a lead, since that’s got to be registered somewhere). Check out their WHOIS to see if there’s anything there.
• Someone just forwarded you some crazy information posted on a domain purporting to be from a public figure or someone recently in the news. Check the WHOIS to see if the timeline and data checks out. Is the information sketchy or questionable? Was the site set up yesterday but purportedly from before then? Does it check out with other contact info you have about the person?
• You’re working on a story about a business that’s got lots of complaints. The phone numbers you had don’t work or you can’t find one for the owner. Sometimes, the WHOIS info they registered with is different — so this is another potential lead.

If nothing else, it’s another place to look for potential sources and data. It’s also something I’ve seen mentioned a few times in news stories of late about memes taking off from political flubs. How long did it take for someone to register “BindersFullOfWomen.com” for instance (and while you’re looking it up, who registered it)? CNN pins it at 90 seconds from the moment that phrase escaped presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney’s mouth to registration. That’s not hard hitting journalism, per se, but it’s an interesting fact. And this is a sometimes useful, sometimes interesting tool.

If you’re a journalist (and especially if you’re a political journalist), a new stat worth knowing about social media usage came out a couple days after last week’s piece on “The Twitter Narrative,” a look at who is on and uses Twitter.

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s “Social Media and Political Engagement” report, just 28 percent of American social media users have “used the tools to post political stories or articles for others to read.”

Interesting on its own, but better with context. What’s the percentage of “social media users” in America? According to Pew’s report, it’s 60 percent who use “social networking sites” (categorized as Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+)  and/or uses Twitter. In other words, it’s 28 percent of only 60 percent of Americans who are the ones sharing the political links you see during your daily reporting activities. Doing the math, that’s under 17 percent who are social media-sharing the political links you eat and breathe.

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Summer is notoriously slow for news. Sure, breaking news and summer festivals will eat up some of the local newshole. But schools are out. Sources (and colleagues) are on vacation. Elections are still months away. And you can only write so much about the weather before you and your readers give up caring or tracking how little rain or how much sunshine your has community received.

Even though important work still takes place and is worth reporting as it happens in the summer months, it’s a good idea to have some story ideas in your back pocket to get you through the news drought. Think of it as insurance against being the reporter handed the next weather story. The editor will hesitate if you can say, “Oh, well actually I was working on (or planning to work on) that story about X-awesome-idea…”

So as you craft your summer story budget, here are five places to watch for tips and good story examples that may inspire your own pieces:
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