BBC journalist Stuart Hughes on newsgathering with Twitter and social media

In this video, World Affairs Producer Stuart Hughes talks about his use of social media at the BBC. He was speaking on a course organised by the BBC College of Journalism on 20 April 2012:





I spoke to Stuart Hughes several times while writing my thesis on the impact of blogging on the BBC's coverage of war and terrorism.

There are a few things worth picking out here about his changing practices in the newsroom.

Just one to get you started is Stuart's shift away from ENPS towards Hootsuite, a Twitter application.

The Essential News Production System is a piece of software designed by the Associated Press which provides all BBC journalists with news and information from news agency sources and other BBC journalists. First installed in 1996, it is also used to produce TV and radio programmes.

In the video, Stuart points out that he still has ENPS open somewhere on his desktop, but for newsgathering he'll mostly be looking at Hootsuite which allows him to monitor many more sources on Twitter.

Using Hootsuite, Stuart has built different Twitter lists for various news topics and stories so he can keep across developments in each area. Notably, these are not public lists, but are kept private in an attempt to compete with rival news organisations.

If you watch the video, it's also worth looking out for a question halfway through where a member of the audience asks whether Stuart uses Twitter as a "single source", which relates to the BBC's practices over sourcing information.

Research: A Twitter Revolution in Breaking News

Abstract

Twitter facilitates the spread of news and information enabling individuals to combat censorship and undermine the stranglehold of state-controlled media. It is undoubtedly playing a significant role in a rapidly evolving digital media landscape and 21st century politics. But journalists’ dubbing of the events in Moldova, Iran, Tunisia and Egypt as “Twitter revolutions” is perhaps more reflective of the experience of their own changing working practices than the politics on the ground. It points to a Twitter revolution occurring in the newsrooms of media organisations, evident in the increasing importance of Twitter for journalists covering breaking news stories.

The Paper

Available here to download from the Social Science Research Network.

Citation

Bennett, D., 'A Twitter Revolution in Breaking News' in Keeble, R. & J. Mair (eds.), Face the Future: Tools for the Modern Media Age, (Abramis, 2011), pp. 63-73.

The blog as scrapbook

A while ago, I interviewed Stuart Hughes, Defence and Security Producer at the BBC about his blog. I'm just transcribing it now.

In the interview, he describes his blog as a "scrapbook" - "a scrapbook for all the stuff that falls on the floor when you're working".

I've never heard anyone else describe a blog like this. Maybe a blog is more of an interactive scrapbook but I like the idea.