Is Banjo right for your newsroom? Here’s what worked at Annenberg Media
When my fellow students and I first learned about the social media content discovery tool Banjo, we thought it seemed interesting, efficient and innovative. But we weren’t quite sure how it would help us as journalists.
“In the beginning, I didn’t understand how it would exactly help a reporter find sources,” said Marina Peña, a classmate of mine in Journalism for Mobile and Emerging Platforms at USC Annenberg. We were both introduced to Banjo — which connects users with content from across several social networks using keywords, location and other factors — during a visit from a company rep as part of the company’s partnership with USC. (Banjo had no knowledge of or influence over this post.)
I shared Marina’s first impression, but Banjo soon found a natural home in the Annenberg Media newsroom as part of our newly created international desk. Using the tool, our team was able to track down sources from anywhere around the world through a streamlined searching process.
For most of the stories I reported, I had to obtain information from sources in specific areas that I had no physical access to. For example, when the Polish government was considering enacting a strict abortion law, I contacted several people in Poland who were at protests across the country. Warsaw was one of the locations, and after my search on Banjo, I found and contacted several protesters. Eventually, I got responses from some, which allowed me to develop my story.
The people I spoke to provided quotes, pictures, videos and links, helping the story come together faster. For example, I worked on a story about the rising-air-pollution crisis in New Delhi for Annenberg Media, which led me to a source that provided me with original content. This eliminated using visual media from news outlets like Reuters, AP and Getty Images.
The benefit of using Banjo was that it helped me sift through posts from a variety of social platforms — some of which dominate in other countries but that most Americans have never heard of. For example, Russia’s version of Facebook is Vkontakte. Although Facebook is one of the leading social media platforms in the world, some countries have it banned.
“It was easier to use Banjo than to try and find sources through social media alone,” said Razzan Nakhlawi, a USC student majoring in journalism and the editor of the international desk.
Banjo doesn’t necessarily need to be used for international story purposes. No matter where they are in the world, students and news organizations should consider using this tool for the obvious reason that it makes the job of a journalist easier when finding the voices needed to bring a story to life.
So if you want to try Banjo, here are some tips for using the tool:
- Be timely. You can access posts on Banjo from the previous 24 hours. So don’t wait to start your story! Start collecting your social media content and reaching out to sources within a day of the time frame you want to capture. Banjo also allows you to search based on specific hours over the past day, so that can help you narrow down the content.
2. Know what you’re looking for. Do you want video? Photos? Does the country you’re searching in use Vkontakte? Maybe Weibo? You can use the “filters” tab to sort by content type or social network.
3. Looking for story ideas? The Banjo homepage is a great resource. Banjo has two buttons on the top left-hand side of the page (“Events” and an upward arrow) that give updates on trending and live events.
4. Zoom. On the right hand side of the page, the plus and minus signs zoom in and out on the map. This can help narrow down your search. The map can also be changed from “map view” to “satellite view,” which helps you visualize the area.
5. Don’t be intimidated. The tool can look daunting at first, but I promise it’s easy to get the hang of. Banjo is there to help — in the end, it’s time saver!
