I’m an active participant in several social networking sites. I MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. I also have a LiveJournal page, a tumblr site, and this blog. Plus my wcco.com/jasonblog page. Insane.
Anyway, as an experiment, I sent out a blast on facebook and myspace, searching for story ideas. I wondered how many I’d get, and whether they’d be useful. I got more than a dozen ideas, at least half of them were really good and actionable. One of those ideas, I’m working on investigating right now.
For the news tonight, I was working on a story on a crime spree hitting local coffee shops. I sent out a twitter notice, that I was doing the story, and looking for people’s favorite coffee shops to go shoot video at. I took one suggestion, and that’s where I shot tonight’s story.
In the old days, journalists had time to work the beat and develop sources. Today, there’s no reason to not tap into the social networks which many of us are developing for fun. Don’t abuse it by asking too often.
