Stuart Hughes · @stuartdhughes
30th Sep 2011 from Twitlonger
My notes from today's panel at #dfdz
I’d like to start with a note of warning – and that’s that you should give a very wide berth to anyone who claims to be a “social media expert” – especially if they come knocking on your door asking you for money.
If they describe themselves as a “social media guru” throw them out of your office immediately.
The fact is that no-one is a social media expert. It’s rather like describing Marconi as a “broadcasting expert.” This is a field of communications that is in its infancy and is changing with breath-taking speed and much of what we discuss today is likely to be obsolete in 18 months time.
The most useful platforms will grow and evolve. Those that can’t justify their existence will quickly die on the vine.
Having said that, I’m now briefly going to don the mantle of a “social media expert” and talk about how we in the BBC are using some of these emerging ways of communicating in our newsgathering.
What’s most striking in my newsroom is how after a very slow start, what we now know as social media – twitter, facebook, you tube and the like – have quickly become central parts of the newsgathering operation.
When I first started writing a blog – remember them? – while I was in Iraq for the 2003 invasion, most of my colleagues had no idea what blogs were or how to set one up.
Even less than a year ago when I tried to persuade a senior manager to let me develop a structured approach to rolling out twitter use across foreign news, I was met with some bemusement and a sense that it wasn’t a key priority for our correspondents in the field who had much more important things to do.
Imagine my surprise, then, when just this week that same manager told us we should be thinking about breaking news stories on twitter BEFORE we go on TV and radio outlets.
I’ve been surprised by how the correspondents I work with, some of whom I wouldn’t describe as the most technologically forward-thinking, have taken to social media and to Twitter especially. Journalists won’t use any kind of new fangled device unless they think it’s going to make their life easier or it’s going to help their newsgathering. And I think the fact that journalists are taking to Twitter and sticking with it speaks volumes – and the well documented use of social media during the Arab Spring has had a lot to do with that.
So what are we getting out of it? Well sadly for the audience in the room, it’s allowing us in many cases to skirt around press officers. We’re able to communicate directly with people involved in the stories we’re covering, whether that be in Yemen, Syria, Libya, wherever. Obviously we have a situation where the world – and especially the areas where we all operate – is divided into the technological haves and have nots and I’ll touch on that briefly in a moment. What works in Tripoli isn’t necessary going to work in Mogadishu.
But we’re now in a world where I can send a tweet someone in Bahrain, or Sirte, or Sanaa and within a very short period of time I can get them live on air in not unacceptable quality via Skype. I may not be able to get a Syrian visa – but I can build up a network of contacts inside the country via social media. It’s obviously not as good as having my own boots on the ground – but it’s a lot better than nothing.
The fact that I say that I don’t need press officers any more might worry some of you. But it shouldn’t. Because just as I can communicate directly with sources on the ground, you can communicate directly with me.
I’ll give you an example. A couple of weeks ago I was covering the DSEi arms fair in Docklands. A number of Pakistani exhibitors were shut down for promoting weapons illegal under UK law.
I was alerted to the story by someone from Oxfam via Twitter. I followed it up and got the key information I needed from people in the arms control field via Twitter, a few direct messages flew backwards and forwards between London, Beirut and Geneva and I was able to stand up the story and file on it in a fraction of the time it would have taken before.
That, I think, is incredibly exciting.
I also don’t think social media is going to put press officers out of business just yet because digital technology now means that you now have the same ability to file first hand reports – text, video, stills, live reports – from the field as we do. You don’t need to employ an expensive PR company to produce a glossy VNR that we probably won’t use anyway. To an extent you can now do it yourself….as Liz has shown in her work with her Everest project.
If you gave me 5 or 6 thousand pounds, I or Liz could go to Tottenham Court Road this afternoon and buy kit that would allow you to send broadcast quality video and live reports from almost any disaster zone in the world. The whole set up would fit into a backpack and would take less than 15 minutes to set up.
So to conclude I’d say that if your social media strategy starts and ends with putting out your latest press release on twitter or a facebook page - don’t bother. I’ll just wait for the press release to arrive in my inbox (and I’ll try to read it first before deleting it.)
There’s no question that the news cycle and the speed of information flow is accelerating because of social media. We at the BBC are realising that we have no option but to operate in this space because if we don’t we’ll be left behind – and I’d suggest the same is true for you too.