Instead of being a useful, secure tool for the public to use as a means of contacting an organization, tip boxes are in reality just a kitschy, spammy, and not particularly secure design element. I get why we have them — to make a show of transparency — but how many leads have you ever gotten from the tip box?

Every time I glimpse one of the notifications from ours in my inbox, I half expect the Syrian Electronic Army to pop out. But it’s usually an insult, jibberish, or a well meaning publicist with a request to cover an event entirely unrelated to the theme of our blog.

The key element here is safety. No one in their right mind– or at least the kind if people you’d want to be conversing with concerning a potential story– is going to try to contact you via the tip box. It’s like calling someone on a landline: intrusive and unlikely to result in a timely connection. It’s called email, or at this point, even a Twitter DM. 

If it weren’t for the disturbing news this week about the Justice Department’s seizure of AP’s phone records, maybe I could find room in my heart for the tip box. But if phone records aren’t safe from our own government, why would anyone leak something through an online tool such as the tip box? Perhaps I’m still just in shock and feeling vicariously betrayed, but the digital anonymous tip box is akin to the charming little crinkly noise my Kindle makes on my iPad. It’s a cute reminder of the more idealistic days of yore — the ones we like to think existed or hope for. But it’s all sort of a farce, isn’t it? 

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

While there’s no fool proof way to find the original, there are a few ways to track down other copies of the image and potentially the original source. One of the easiest places to start is with a reverse image search.

It’s probably a good idea for journalists to plug any images they share into these sites before passing it along or repinning it with credit to the wrong source. Why use it? Last week in the wake of Super Storm Sandy, one of the most shared photos I saw pass around social media was of soldiers standing in a downpour guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It was a real shot — from a few months before, not from Sandy as it was being purported to be. (Sandy spawned so many fake images, several places started tracking the real from the fake.) Reverse image searches also could help you find other similar photos of local landmarks that people have taken over the years if you search by one you have.

It’s just another tool in the toolbox and a useful trick when it works. There are a few image search options out there, so if you want to find more just search in your favorite search engine for “reverse image search” and see what comes up. The two I’ll discuss are probably the most well known, but feel free to share more ideas in the comments or links to this post.
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

But for all of that talk, there comes a point where you need to decide what action to take, if any.

Newsrooms today are bombarded with lists of best practice, how-to’s and draconian Do This Or You Will Perish blogs and articles.

Do you go with the herd, or do you hold your own and keep moving forward the best way you know how?

I’d really like to hear from some of our readers who are “on the ground” as a part of, or observing, their newsroom’s transformation and/or adoption of social media and online communities.

Not everyone is going to have an easy time of it, but there is certainly opportunity to learn from each other’s experiences.

If you have something to share,  please chime in with a comment below about the horror stories, or the tales of greatness at the news organization you work at.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

While their reasoning is well-intended, I think it’s time to take another look at what those reasons are, and whether opportunities exist to capitalize on the new media landscape to benefit the news organization.

Here are three reasons why allowing reporters to write for other blogs may end up being beneficial:

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Like businesses, news organizations can use Facebook advertising as a way to attract new readers and listeners.

If the news organization posts stories and photos to its page, there’s a significant opportunity to get traction out of those posts, in the form of Facebook advertising. Facebook enables advertisers to create ads out of photos and text that they’ve posted to their wall.

Every story is going to have a different target demographic likely to be interested in it.

By having the organizational flexibility to run ads based on varying demographic targeting, news organizations have an opportunity to get exposure with different audiences every day.

Many news organizations are fighting for the budget they can get, often with little or nothing left over. So finding money for advertising will be challenging. But for those who are able to do some experimenting, it could yield positive outcomes.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Other sites have been created that deal with a specific topic. Their membership numbers are small in number, but the topics discussed often garner a lot of activity because the people on the site are passionate about the subject.

When I think about subject-matter expertise in a newsroom, I think of a beat writer/reporter. In the newsroom, they are the subject-matter experts for the beat that they are assigned to cover.

They have a first-hand knowledge of the topic and the issues at hand and they have relationships with the people who are impacted or make decisions about the topic.

In the world of social media and online communities, they would be ideal community managers.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Included in this week’s round-up is discussion about the connected customer and what that means for brands and media; why it’s good to use social media as part of crisis communications; Timeline tips for power users; how Facebook “likes” are similar to e-mail opt-in; and why you should pay social media interns.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

That was a few months before my college graduation. And after putting so much work into the blog, I proudly stamped the URL on my resume and included it in my cover letters to prospective employers. To be honest, the blog’s inclusion wasn’t so much a way to show off my work as to cover my ass. When I interviewed for jobs, I discussed it. When I was hired, I searched the employee handbook and intranet for information about personal blogs. Soon after I arrived, I sat down with the executive editor and we discussed it. See, what kept me up late at night wasn’t the prospect of graduating without a job, but rather I did not want one of those editors to plug my name in Google and come across my blog, assuming I had hid or was hiding it.

I had flashbacks to that period and those decisions when I heard the story of Khristopher Brooks, who was fired this week from the job he hadn’t yet started because of the way he announced his new job on his tumblr blog. Brooks did a silly thing, but in my opinion, the folks he thought would soon be his new bosses did an even sillier one. (In my honest opinion, I think they come off looking out-of-touch and overly cautious for a news organization currently force-feeding its employees the “digital first!” company line, and he comes off probably having dodged a bullet.)

Here’s what got Brooks fired, and then, here’s my been-there-done-that advice on how to not get fired for your personal journalism blog.
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But what does that really mean?

Here’s a short list of skills that I believe should be part of the basic social media skill set for a journalist today:

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This post will touch again on those experiences, but will look at a common question I was asked by students in many of the classes I spoke to.

In every class I spoke to, there was one student who always asked the same question: How can I get a job in social media?

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As social media has become more integrated into how businesses promote themselves, buy advertise, market at various levels, it has caused a seismic shift in what platforms get priority over others.

This seismic shift has created a ripple effect in the way that marketing, public relations, communications and journalism is taught by colleges in the U.S.

Many universities are faced with two options: integrate social media into their current curriculum, or teach it separately as a specialism, with a certificate or even a separate major.

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This week I’ve been speaking to classes at Central Michigan University about social media and how it relates to mass communications and journalism.

At the end of my lecture, I took questions from the audience.

A recurring theme among the students has been a level of skepticism that social media is here to stay, or if it will fade out and be replaced with something else.

Their skepticism surprised me because they were the last group of people I expected to hear something like that from.

Students asked if there’s something new on the horizon that will off-set Facebook, Twitter and so on.

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