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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The Googleplex where TechRaking was held.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. — About 200 journalists and techies gathered at the Googleplex yesterday to try to find a more perfect union between muckrakers and technologists at first-ever TechRaking conference. One of the common themes: If we have to do more with less, then technology has to make up the difference. That means we need more tools to help us do things more efficiently.

Albert Sun, a New York Times programmer, captures the problem in a blog post:

A lot of effort at journalism innovation has been focused around the product that our readers experience. People are doing great things to take advantage of the new storytelling forms and new ways of engaging with people that the web browser and the internet have made possible.

But I want to turn some attention to the opposite side of things. What about all the myriad tasks that lead up to writing and producing a story that represent most of the work that a reporter does? Where is the innovation that makes that work faster and easier?

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There’s no dearth of ways for journalists to congratulate and recognize themselves with awards. Whether you’re a small local newspaper or the most-watched national news show, there exists a seemingly endless list of contests and prizes to celebrate everything from the best public service journalism (Pulitzer anyone?) down to the most-specific specialized reporting (Media Orthopaedic Reporting Excellence Awards?). But within that sphere of contest categories, there’s not really been a contest solely focused on data journalism.

Now there is: The Data Journalism Awards, which purports to be “the first international contest recognizing outstanding work in the field of data journalism worldwide.”

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Today marks one month since the Occupy Wall Street movement started in New York City. This past weekend, the movement went global, with thousands protesting in cities from Canada to London and Rome to Tokyo. News organizations have been covering the events daily, but reporters are doing more than just broadcasting interviews with protestors and retelling eyewitness accounts. Many are utilizing new story telling techniques to enhance their reporting.

If you are covering the Occupy Wall Street protestors in your city, consider using the examples below to ensure you cover all aspects of the story.

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