Journalism.co.uk talks to journalists across the globe about social media and how they see it changing their industry.
1. Who are you and what do you do?
Vicky Taylor, editor of Interactivity for BBC News. I run the team which produces the Have Your Say section of the website and the UGC hub which takes all the fantastic content the public send us and passes it on to all other BBC programmes and sites – internationally and in UK.
2. Which web or mobile-based social media tools do you use on a daily basis and why?
Apart from Have You Say on BBC news website (on my pc but also on my phone as read only) I get news email alerts on my phone and on my PC about upcoming BBC programmes.
I’m also on Facebook, but use that mainly to contact old friends now in Australia (not from BBC of course), and LinkedIn, which is more useful for business contacts.
Your net worth is your network as the guy who set it up said recently! I started off using del.icio.us to bookmark interesting articles but never have enough time to do it justice. As a team we look at Youtube, Shozu, Seesmic, MySpace and some team members are on twitter so we monitor that too.
3. Of the thousands social media tools available could you single one out as having the most potential for news, either as a publishing or newsgathering tool?
Facebook has been fantastically helpful to our team in finding people with specialist interest.
When the Burma uprising was happening, a colleague found the Friends of Burma group and through them got in touch with many who had recently left the country and had amazing tales to tell.
Journalists now have to know how to seek out information and contact from all sorts of sources and social network sites are key to this.
4. And the most overrated?
I wouldn’t pick out one as overrated as they all have different uses for different audiences. I think though you have to be fairly selective, as keeping across all the sites and emails you may get if you go into everything is just not possible and dilutes the value of the really good ones.