Before I left KTRK, I showed several of the assignments staff how to find stories through the social media Web 2.0 world. Better learn it now because I feel it is kind of inescapable. This goes for reporters too.
My idea for an assignments desk 2.0 would be to use social media to track the kind of stories you are not getting emailed or faxed in. Echo this for the police and fire scanners. Yes, stations get a lot of viewer tips, but there are some things that are never getting sent in.
Considering it is free and quick to set up, there is no excuse for not using an RSS reader. I set this up for newsroom personnel years ago. You can follow all of the TV stations and newspapers in Houston (or any market) fairly easily via RSS or Really Simple Synidcation. This also includes press releases from city and county agencies. Forget about going to all of the sites everyday only to find out they have not been updated. With RSS, the news comes to you right after it is updated. Easy. The users I set up with this really appreciated it and have now used it happily for years.
A Twitter account is a must have for a desk person too. I can't tell you how many cities and agencies in the Houston area started popping up on the service over the last few months. Using a Twitter client, you could be updated every time an alert is issued. Of course all of the Houston media is on the service too. If you don't do RSS, you can probably keep track of the folks across the street via Twitter. (I even figured out how to get abc13 headlines on a Facebook business class page. Sounds easy right? Must not be, hardly anyone else is doing it. Most of the time stations are breaking Terms of Service and using a personal profile to spam stories to users. That's a Zuckerberg no, no!)
I believe assignment editors have to also use Twitter tracking software like Tweetdeck to follow stories of people they are not following too. A few smartly utilized keywords can make a big difference. I'll give a silly example. When Wrestlemania was in Houston this year, I used Tweetdeck to find out that Triple H and family were at the Children's Museum. A camera was sent. Monitoring keywords on Twitter can be used in any big event. When Swine Flu returns this year, think about using it to see which schools are closing before the school districts make an official announcement. You never know, a parent might Tweet it. Of course this is not reportable, but you will have a leg up on the competition so you win.
There is so much more that can be done but I am not filling the blog with everything. The non-news readers would get bored! Heck, I didn't even get into how reporters can effectively use social media to promote their stories or better yet - themselves. If a station wants to hire me for a lesson, my email is on the right hand side.
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