RTDNF and HSBJ.org hosted a Webinar Feb. 19 with Dr. Sybril Bennett, an Associate Professor of Journalism specializing in new media at Belmont University in Nashville. A replay of the Webinar can be found on the HSBJ.org Web site. The 50-minute talk covers everything from Twitter, Facebook and Buzz to the need for more how-to videos, educating students on social media, and using Google's Fast Flip. The archived Webinar can be found here.

How should professional journalists deal with their Tweets, Facebook entries and Blogs?  When do you run photo or videos from outside sources? What can a journalist write on a personal blog?

The Radio Television Digital News Association just released new Social Media and Blogging Guidelines for its professional journalists. It's already created a lot of buzz. There is a lot here to talk about with your students.

From the State of the Union address to the Grammys, Twitter—and how news organizations use it—continues to amaze me. We’re still figuring it out ourselves here at Whitney Update, but we’re getting the hang of it, so I put together this resource for other staffs hoping to do more with their Twitter presence. Assuming your staff has a Twitter account in place, this handout will walk them (or you) through suggestions for tweeting live event coverage.

Attachments:

File	Description	File size
eventtweet.pdf	This is a PDF handout developed by Sarah Nichols of Whitney High School to help staffs cover live events at school using Twitter.	408 Kb

Although journalism students are skilled communicators, I often find that they do little communicating with one another. Lack of clear communication between staff members can lead to all sorts of problems -- missed deadlines, duplication of effort and hurt feelings. These problems are compounded when a publication staff that is split over more than one class period. And while nothing beats good old-fashioned face-to-face communication, I have found that a classroom wiki page is an incredibly useful tool for making sure everyone is "on the same page".

Many news outlets were busy today breaking the news of actress Brittany Murphy's passing. One article on the subject that caught my attention though was on CNN. It wasn't so much that people like Ashton Kutcher or Jessica Simpson were used as sources, it was how they were used as sources.

Attachments:

File	Description	File size
CNN B. Murphy article	This article showcases one example of how the media uses social networking sites to obtain information for stories.	149 Kb