Five questions for editors about Twitter et al.

Do you have a disaster recovery plan for social media?

Given last week’s announcement by Twitter that it would comply with tweet censoring in certain parts of the world, it might be time for editors and journalists to think what this kind of policy adoption means for them, both now and in the longterm. If you are a journalist who regularly uses social media tools in your work (Facebook, Twitter, Google +), or an editor who encourages their use in your newsroom , here are five basic questions you should know the answer to:

What Would Rupert Do?* The Lessons of a Tweeting Murdoch.

It used to be the case that the news media’s engagement with social media and the commercial web was once reminiscent of Dr Samuel Johnson’s quote about women preachers  ‘..like a dog walking on its hinder legs.It is not done well, but you are surprized to find it done at all’.  Not any more.

Rupert Murdoch’s gift to the rest of the ailing packaged media this New Year was his sudden, spontaneous and apparently authentic appearance on Twitter . It is astonishing to see (apparently) a man that the world’s media media has spent decades trying to decode, announcing as a casual aside that he favours Rick Santorum in the GOP race . The feverish delight at his debut gave way to slow news day speculation about his interest in Twitter in general. I was one among many wondering (on Twitter, naturally) what would happen if Rupert Murdoch liked Tweeting so much, he bought the company?

A Murdoch purchase of Twitter is not the point of the thought experiment. The point is really to sharpen focus for journalists on what their use of  third party platforms really means for the long term. 

Real time, All the time: Why every news organisation has to be live

Twitter does not have many users in Abbottabad in Pakistan, where Facebook is apparently more the social platform of choice. But it has enough to break the first sounds of gunfire in the fight which was to eventually lead to the death of Osama bin Laden. Sohaib Athar, with his @ReallyVirtual Twitter handle, is not the future of news he is the present of news.

Twitterrise