Keep refreshing to stay on top of a story

This past broadcast we had a great story about Ashton Kutcher's insensitive Joe Paterno quotes.  It was a chance to not only broadcast a story about social media, but we were able to use his tweets for a full-screen graphic.  We also got word of Billy Crystal's hosting the Oscars through his Twitter.  That story wouldn't have been found nearly as quickly without the help of our web team.  As the graphics teammate, I wrote the story and posted it to atvn.org within a few minutes.  It was cool to click on the website and see my post as breaking news.  Team Thursday has a really great set of reporters who definitely take advantage of social media.  I know of several occasions where they were tweeting while on an assignment.  It adds that little something extra to our Twitter account be so active.  I find that most breaking news is found through Twitter, but we get a lot of information and interviews through people commenting on the Facebook page.  We got a lot of information from Penn State students about the Paterno crisis on Thursday because we made the ATVN Facebook status about it.  The trick for social media in general is to stay on top of it, keep refreshing and engage in the medium.  Keep posting questions because people respond.  Search trending topics or update stories that we already have in the rundown.  I am a big believer in the power of social media.  It makes reporting breaking news a lot easier for a school news broadcast.