The Guardian rounds up the best comments, questions and answers from our recent live chat on tomorrow's journalist – what tools and skills will they need to survive and thrive?
Twitter and I weren’t best friends to begin with. I was initially frustrated by the 140 character limit, confused by the retweet button and totally mystified by the use of hashtags. It just seemed an overly complicated Facebook.
But after a year of perseverance, Twitter and I are best friends. I now check it at least once a day, exhaust the 140 character limit and I have got the retweet and hastag features off to a tee. Facebook is now very much on the backburner too.
Over the past year I have also seen a similar friendship blossom between professional sports journalists and Twitter. They are a match made in heaven, and what makes this relationship extra special is that the dynamics of sports journalism have been changed for the better.
The sports journalists have flocked to Twitter in the belief of this; I currently follow well over 600 sports reporters, and there are still so many more to be found. Twitter’s importance is also telling; when the finest sports reporters in the country have an account: Henry Winter of the Daily Telegraph and Phil Mcnulty of the BBC are just a couple of stand-out examples.
Their presence appears to be most welcome too. A quick nose into Henry Winter’s profile and you see he has well over 200,000 followers. But for the sports journalist Twitter is more than a simple competition of who can gain the most followers. It gives them a wealth of options at their fingertips that they previously did not have.
Sport is undoubtedly one of the fastest-moving areas of news, and with developing stories Twitter has become the reporters’ saviour. It allows the reader to be updated quickly and succinctly whilst providing the reporter with extra time to pull a story together. The most recent example came last week, when Queens Park Rangers sacked their manager Neil Warnock, Sam Lyon, Goal.com’s UK Editor broke the news: Neil Warnock leaves QPR. Incredible. As followers digested the news, Goal.com prepared its story and published it 15 minutes later.
In those rare moments when the sporting world takes time to catch breath, the sports journalist on Twitter, can help promote others work by retweeting articles which have been tweeted to them. It’s fantastic for grassroots sports reporting, giving the new generation -like myself - an opportunity to get their work read and recognised.
The majority of followers however, are not following the reporter to see citizen journalism; they are interested in both the professional’s work and the quality assurance aspect that that professional brings. That is a huge part the reason why sports journalists attract thousands of followers – paving the way for self-promotion.
On the day of writing this, I came across this notion. A freelance football reporter I was following self-promoted his latest work on the BBC Sport’s website. His tweet contained the link; I read the article and then I became interested in other areas of the site. The latter part of this chain reaction is important. If the journalist can direct the follower to their work then there is a good chance that that follower will be more inclined to look at other parts of the website, giving only further reason for sport sections and specialist sport websites to encourage their reporters to be on Twitter.
But the self-promotion does not have to be the sports journalist’s latest work; it could be about upcoming articles, and in particular interview pieces. Paul Hayward of the Guardian demonstrated this in November last year. On the 28th November he tweeted: Spoke to Alan Shearer about Gary Speed today for tomorrow's Telegraph. Marvin Gaye's line came back to me: I looked around, and he was gone. His tweet was essentially a signpost for both his work and for his newspaper, and the very next day he delivered the much anticipated interview: In great distress, Alan Shearer took the trouble to talk to the Telegraph about his dear friend Gary Speed. The link - http://t.co/4SPQDn1O.
Sport is also about the fan’s opinion, and so it is important that the sport reporters understands the feelings of supporters; Twitter provides journalists with the platform to do so. The professional sports journalists can tweet questions and polls to gain evidence or background for a story, and no longer have to travel out of the office to interview fans’ on the streets. Also, the days of uncertainty over reader’s thoughts on an article in the newspaper are over. Now journalists’ can receive instant feedback on their work and can even be shown factual errors they might have made in their copy.
With a huge sporting year scheduled in 2012, an increase in the number of sports journalists is expected. There is also the belief that Twitter will play an even greater role in sports reporting than ever before. There’s no better time for the sports journalists to find themselves a new best friend.
