Sharpening News Judgment Through Twitter

Alan Goldenbach

Utica College

News Judgment

• Easily the most fundamental skill for journalism students to learn. What’s the most important story or piece of information?

• How do you practice and develop it? Follow the news.

Eh, not so interested

• First, news is boring.

Students are not motivated to follow serious news (politics, national security, global conflict, etc.).

• Second, they don’t want to read.

Assign them a news site, and they will still miss the key stories. Why? They don’t know where to look, or how to distinguish a story’s relative importance.

News is more than that

• News judgment, though, can be executed on stories of all topics.

• We exercise news judgment on stories involving sports, entertainment, celebrities.

So why not use news involving those topics to get them to hone their news judgment chops?

Combine the two

• Give them a subject they like and light reading and maybe they’ll try to follow the news?

The assignment

• Each student must choose a person, group or entity in the news.

• Then, the student must identify 5-10 Twitter feeds that consistently report on their particular subject.

Follow the follows

• Each week, over the course of a semester, students will assess the respective Twitter feeds they’ve chosen.

• How does each feed cover the subject/person differently?

Variables

• Frequency – Indicates how important the Tweeter feels the subject is to the audience

• Type of news – What kind of news does the Tweeter Tweet? Only the good stuff? Only the unflattering? More (or less) of one type?

• Tone – Are the Tweets straight? Edgy? Sarcastic? Emotional?

• Original info or Retweets? – How does that impact the student’s trust of the Tweeter?

In the end

• Students write a paper detailing the coverage of their topic through the Twitter-verse.

• Were some Twitter feeds more/less reliable with information? Why?

• Were some Twitter feeds more/less fair with their information? How so?

• How did the portrayal of information impact your perception of the subject? Did it change?

The Final Analysis

• Through a subject for which they already have an incentive to follow closely, students can monitor how news sources (individual reporters or entire news outlets) cover a particular entity.

• Which Twitter feed covered the subject more accurately? More fairly?

That’s news judgment!

Questions?

Alan Goldenbach

Utica College

(315) 223 – 2541 (office)

(202) 309 – 5027 (mobile)

amgolden@utica.edu

@goldiewrite