Sentinel.com blog

We asked Sentinel Digital intern Eric Brown to write up his thoughts on Reddit and its possibilities for news organizations, specifically the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Here’s his thoughtful response (which isn’t exactly three ways news organizations can benefit from Reddit):

Breaking down Reddit and its use to the Sentinel

This is just a preliminary look into what exactly Reddit is, how its community functions, and how exactly a local news organization (specifically the Sentinel) can utilize the site.

The recent social media boom has benefited the world in lots of ways that are more serious than simply connecting with old friends. Sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr have been particularly useful to journalists when it comes to both sharing their work and sourcing new stories. This latter element is one that can tend to be overlooked by reporters who are just gaining their Twitter sea legs. Sure, social networking is a great way to get out the word about the new column you wrote, but it’s also a fantastic way to find people close to a topic or story who may otherwise have been hidden. Even if someone on Twitter or Facebook isn’t directly connected to a story they can provide useful opinions that can drive a story to new places through conversation.

That’s where the social networking site Reddit comes into play. When compared to Twitter, Reddit is a much more insular place, driven by casual anonymous interactions that rely on a significant amount of assumed respect. Reddit is comprised of message boards (called subreddits) where people still use screen names and pseudonyms to discuss their points. Subreddits can range from serious (r/politics) to nerdy (r/starwars) to flatly obscene (there are a plethora of niched porn subreddits). But what each subreddit has in common is that its moderators and members are dedicated to whatever specialized topic they may be covering. Some of the communities are large and some are small, but they all feature people with a common interest posting topical stories, videos, and pictures and then commenting about these pieces of media. Reddit uses a system of upvotes and downvotes so that the most popular posts and the most popular comments on those posts rise to the top. The site tries to emphasizes that the voting shouldn’t be based on whether readers agree – instead it should be based on the legitimacy or insight that is held by the post’s argument. On more serious subreddits like r/economics this can lead to some very thorough academic discourse.

So where does a local paper like the Sentinel fit into Reddit’s vision? The short answer is that it doesn’t, at least not in the way publications have come to conceive other social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. Reddit is all about community and user driven discussion, so it is frowned upon if users repeatedly push their own content for commercial purposes. A newspaper trying to spread its stories through Reddit would be viewed with disdain by Redditors; in fact, some publications, notably The Atlantic, have been banned from Reddit after their writers tried to push their own articles. If someone posts a song they made to r/hiphopheads requesting feedback it is viewed as genuine crowdsourcing, but any amount of self-promotion (that isn’t looking for a critique or genuine discussion) is viewed negatively. Even Reddit itself has put out announcements cautioning against spamming subreddits with your own material, unless you want to get feedback, start a discussion, etc.

It would be unwise for the Sentinel to have a “scsentinel” Reddit account, because even if it wasn’t sacked immediately it wouldn’t be viewed favorably by most Redditors. However, Reddit can still serve the paper. If reporters at the Sentinel have accounts and go on the various Santa Cruz subreddits (including r/SantaCruz, r/santacruzlocals, r/scsurf, r/UCSC, r/CSUMB, r/MontereyBay) they will be able to accomplish a lot by listening to Redditors. Self-identifying as reporters could even be smart, in the context of “Hey, this topic is really interesting, I’m a reporter at the Sentinel – could we talk more about this?” Reddit is used primarily by young college students and professionals, so as the site continues to grow it could be a really valuable source in tapping into these demographics and becoming involved in local conversations that might be hard to access or understand from an office cubicle.

The iPad is becoming a bigger part of everything we do in the news world.

More people are using it to consume news. More people are using it for social sharing. More people are using it for web browsing, and if you want to show anyone photos of your kids, there’s nothing better.

More people are finding the iPad takes the place of a desktop computer, or a laptop computer. And the iPad’s productivity tools continue to get better.

When the Sentinel offered a plan for employees to buy iPads through a payroll deduction, we wound up with a stack of 26 of them that were handed out last month.

How are reporters using them?

Well, they’re learning. They’re working on typing stories into Google docs and sending them back to the desk (pro tip – work through the Google search app, rather than the browser). They’re working on photo sharing on Twitter and Instagram through the iPad. They’re exploring apps like Evernote (for note taking with multimedia) and Dragon Dictation. They’re looking at photo editing tools through Photoshop Express, video editing with iMovie.
They’re getting their own news through Flipboard and Zite.
They’re looking at Storify as a way of gathering social reaction to events.
They’re looking at AP news.
They’re checking out Cloud On (for accessing excel and Word files).

Sentinel reporters Shanna McCord and Jason Hoppin browse through app stores for iPad and iPhone and talk about productivity tools for journalists.

My advice for journalists – be curious. Imagine how your audience is getting your work and try to shorten the distance between you and the reader. Imagine how the audience of the future will receive your work, and meet them there. I think a lot of reporters are thinking they report, write, send to an editor, who sends to page designer, the story prints and somehow winds up on our website. There are a million ways for reporters and editors to improve you own brand, improve your own digital skills, improve the information you receive about your beat, and serve the audience. With regard to the iPad, it contains all the tools needed to perform your daily work in the journalism world. Consider taking a day to cover your beat using only that tool – progress on the learning curve will be worth the effort.

Make a point of seeing what’s possible for readers, and of thinking about how you can help create that experience for your own readers.

Here are a few of the apps you may find helpful:

• Twitter, a must for being informed and breaking news
• Storify – for collecting and re-sharing social media and other links
• Evernote – multimedia note taking in the cloud
• Dragon Dictation
• Photoshop Express – photo editing
• Instagram- social photo sharing
• iMovie – video editing
• AP mobile – breaking news from Associated press
• iA Writer – simple writing template
• Zite, Flipboard, Feedly – readers
• Google – if you’ve been a gmailer and fan of google’s productivity tools, use the app, where applications and services are optimized

Other suggestions: Here’s a discussion in Quora (thanks @ivanlajara): What are the best iPad apps for journalists?

We all welcome your tips.

Posted from Los Altos, California, United States.

The online team held our first weekly open, informal staff training session Thursday, and it was a big success.

We erased the white board of 2011 newsmakers and posted some pale, inky non-digital suggestions for twitter use:

1. Break news there – use #scsnews to send to our home page
2. Follow people/sources on your beat
3. Be human, interact with your audience
4. Share interesting news from the community
5. Ask for feedback, input on stories you’re working on

With the widget on our home page, article pages, etc., we’d love to see that become a rich multimedia stream that shows what the staff is working on, seeing and hearing, throughout the day.

More importantly, we had one member of the newsroom actually attend the training session: Unlucky Don. He’s unlucky, not because he attended, but because that’s his twitter handle. Assistant City Editor Don Fukui will be letting his followers know about his progress toward winning the lottery on that account. Follow him: @unluckydon.

We consider that a big success – not often any of us get a chance to slow down, stop working and talk about ideas. We’re going to keep doing it. Join us next Thursday at 1 p.m., or schedule your own personal training session. Next on twitter: Dan Coyro.

Also – good reading regarding twitter (and it’s not all about twitter, of course) from the Sentinel’s most followed reporter: @jmpasko96

http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/twitter/

http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=4756

Engagement! Twitter is about engagement!

Posted from Santa Cruz, California, United States.