Twitter Chatter

When posting on Twitter, you first do a 50-character post with a 130-character follow-up. A good skill to have as a journalist and several people are already doing well with this.

Cara Flynn followed the character posting rule very well. She pulled out the necessary information from each story that she read and combined the information together in an organized manner.

Mike McGregor's page displayed each story with the right amount of information and no junk information, so to speak. It is clear that he closely examined everything the larger articles had to offer before making a Twitter post. He has also started to follow several other people and their posts.

Nicole Bellman displayed her skill with each posting of limited characters very well. She went straight to the point and the information provided had me feeling confident that I wasn't missing any other important facts when I read the posts.

All in all, a lot of good work so far. I think everyone in class has a pretty good handle on everything!

Reviewing the techniques...

Our most recent assignment was to read Chapter 4 of ATN in order to learn more about lead structure and short reports. Lead structures tend to be very specific and are generally only a sentence long. They are used as an opening to more information about a story. It can grab a reader’s attention, and help a reader decide if the story is worth reading further or not. Short reports are altogether extremely short, but tend to give the most important information to the audience as quickly as possible.

An example of a lead structure can be found on the baltimoresun.com website. This story discusses using Garrett County’s resources for gas. With the recent storm having just hit, gas prices are going up. A brief introduction that goes further into the discussion of leases, it can be very informative for anyone who lives in that area.

Also found on the baltimoresun.com website is an example of a short report. This short report involves a local bank in Baltimore County being in support of a four-day work week. It tells you what is happening and who is involved in a simple paragraph.

Information is delivered to us in many styles and learning how to properly use them will go a long way in a future career as a journalist.