Live coverage online

In class this week we’ll conduct a live tweeting assignment. Whether or not you’re using Twitter to break news, you’ll be asked to post quick updates as news events unfold.

This week’s assignment will help you practice prioritizing information, crafting factual statements on deadline, and thinking about engaging with your audience while paying attention to the news story unfolding.

The New York Times has been tweeting from events, but also posting “live blogs,” which are reverse chronological updates from breaking news events on the website. (See the live blog of the Paris attacks, the Brussel attacks, and the 2016 election.)

Several news outlets use Storify to combine text storytelling with social media updates. It helps organize the details into a better story, so it’s not just all floating out in the Internet. Here’s one from Mashable during a big Nor’Easter. Mashable also embedded its live Storify blog into its final recap of the Oscars this year.

The Verge has a series of live blogs, including this one about a recent rocket launch to send supplies to the International Space Station. The blogs are organized with clear transitions into the information, and a distinct separation between posts.

TechCrunch has been live blogging since before Twitter became mainstream. Here’s one blog from a 2008 Steve Jobs iPhone announcement. And here’s a more recent one.

Live tweeting

A good place to follow live coverage through Twitter is during prominent trials, such as the examples below from the Joshua Komisarjevsky trial in 2011. Below are a couple examples from the Hartford Courant’s live coverage of the trial.

See how Griffin introduces what she’s tweeting about, and also points readers to the website for more in-depth coverage.

For longer quotes, she splits the tweets into two parts. Avoid too much of this, but it works if used right.

Write about content (quotes and votes), but also about actions.

Tweeting out updates during an event is an important part of getting your story to your readers and to the editors. While you have less control over the other content people see, don’t underestimate the medium for quickly sharing information with people.

Live Tweeting Tips

Arrive prepared: You’ll be giving live updates, so you won’t have time to listen and try to figure out what’s going on. You’ll need to do as much homework before the event as possible so you can accurately tweet the action happening. Read past articles, write down all speakers’ names, ask questions before the event. Preparation will help ensure your tweets give context and accurate information.

Tell people what to expect: Your first tweet should give some context. Where are you? What’s happening? Think about the news here: Why have you decided to cover this event? Tell your readers the news.

Use proper spelling, punctuation, grammar, AP Style: You should always follow guidelines of professional writing, with few exceptions. Some editors want you to use AP style no matter what — even if it means you lose characters because you’re spelling out seven instead of writing 7.

Write short. Leave room for links: This is the ultimate test in concise writing. You should be able to say the most important fact in each tweet in less than 140 characters. That leaves you room to add a hashtag or a link to more content.

Visuals help: As we talked about earlier, visuals, links and stats help get your tweet more attention. If you’re at a meeting, take a photo of the speaker (get close!) and use that along with your tweet.

#Hashtags can be part of your sentence: As Griffin does in the above example, you can use the hashtag as part of your sentence, if it works.

Retweeting helps provide context to your readers: If you don’t have time to write every note down, but someone else is tweeting from the same meeting, you should consider retweeting some of their content as well — as long as it’s professional, accurate and helpful.

Quote: Usually you’re live tweeting an announcement, event, or meeting. Find out everyone’s names before hand and then quote them as they progress, providing some dialog for your readers. You can format the quotes with last name: then the quote.

Don’t tweet too much: We don’t need every single detail about what happened. And if you’re too busy tweeting, you’ll miss important context. So make sure you take time to listen, and craft impactful tweets. Give yourself time to spell check and fact check your tweets before you hit send. You might want to take notes on paper and then craft the tweet from your notes.