Lindsey Mastis is the Bureau Manager for Feature Story News’ new Los Angeles office. She shoots, writes, and edits, and reports for FSN’s international clients.
0Posted by Lindsey Mastis on February 13, 2012 at 4:13 PM
As a journalist, I’ve attended countless press briefings. But this time I wasn’t the reporter. I was the tweeter. My job was to give a unique insight into the budget meeting by live tweeting the portions I thought were interesting. I also got to connect with my fellow NASA enthusiasts in the Twitterverse.
I don’t remember where I saw the initial tweet, but someone posted a link to register for the tweetup online. I quickly registered and two days later, I was selected to attend. Of course, I bragged via tweet.
Normally, I wouldn’t get all that excited about a budget briefing. But this is NASA. And all those numbers reflect space missions, exploration, and goals, like landing on an astroid.
Walking into NASA’s Headquarters is exciting. There are space suits in display cases. And a lot of people wearing suits. I wondered how many have been to space.
I went straight to the auditorium to sit with my fellow tweeters. We sat in a reserved section, front row, center. The best seats in the house. We were in front of the video cameras. We could hear, see, and easily ask questions.
Soon, the regular reporters and photographers shuffled in and set up. Then, the briefing began.
NASA’s Bob Jacobs moderated the briefing. But first, he tweeted a picture of us from the podium. (You can tell by the pixelation that he obviously used his government-issued blackberry.)
Even though it seems like we just began 2012, the year 2013 was plastered everywhere. This budget represents the future of NASA. And a lot of talk was about plans for 2017 or 2021.
After Bolden and the Chief Financial Officer Elizabeth Robinson made there presentations, they took questions from the traditional reporters. Then, they took questions from us tweeters. They also addressed questions from the #askNASA hashtag on twitter, so anyone could have had their questions answered by the guy in the charge.
I was extremely surprised to hear how informative, thoughtful, and difficult the questions were coming from our tweet group. Afterward, I asked Jacobs what he thought of the experiement [video]:
Now I’ve had the chance to experience a serious briefing as a traditional journalist and as a tweeter. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience and hope I get an opportunity to participate in another #NASATweetup soon.
8Posted by Lindsey Mastis on December 28, 2011 at 12:11 AM
Instagram is my new best friend in the field. It’s a basic iPhone app that shares photos and captions on a variety of social sites, including Twitter and Facebook (not to mention my fav, Foursquare). It allows me to share information and encourage viewers to tune in, with a few taps on my phone. And now I’m combining other editing apps to make my photos look even better.
Today was a perfect example of how I use Instagram in the field. My goal is to spark interest and start discussions well before the story airs. My updates mention my station, and if I know what time the story will air, I’ll mention that as well.
I drove up to Urbana, Maryland (in Frederick County) today to do a story about two garage fires that happened at the same time and within two blocks of each other. Fire damage is often a very visual scene. I snapped a picture with my iPhone camera, uploaded the photo to Camera+ and added some enhancements (brightening the photo and blurring the edges so people’s eyes would go straight to the burned out cars). Then I added the photo to Instagram and shared it on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Foursquare.
This was the caption (note the hashtags and “@” so people could easily search and reply): “This is one of two garage fires that happened in the same neighborhood last night. Story on @wusa9 #news #washingtondc #dc #fire.” At the end of the day, it had 179 “likes” and 17 comments on Instagram’s network.
As soon as I was done at this fire scene, I went around the block to the next. The next garage was full of debris. I added this caption: “Here’s the second garage destroyed by fire. Family’s son luckily had just taken car out to run an errand. #news @wusa9.” It got 158 “likes” and 9 comments on Instagram.
I’d like to grow those numbers and get more feedback during the day. Instagram is still pretty new, but it’s growing. There’s already 15 million people trying it out. I’m focusing on tracking my numbers there– but journalists have to remember it’s just one avenue. By connecting the app to several other social networks, it’s possible thousands of people will see it, and a small portion will comment or respond. Just because no one comments doesn’t mean they didn’t see it. So think of your Instagrams like a tease to your story. You don’t have to give everything away. And if you do– briefly explain why they should tune in for the full piece later that day.
In today’s case, people were commenting and asking whether it was arson. The Fire Marshall hadn’t said that until very, very late in the day. I was able to provide those updates on air, and by commenting on my own Instagram picture.
By the way– a lot of networks are hopping on this wagon, including ABC, NBC, and NPR, just to name a few.
1Posted by Lindsey Mastis on November 25, 2011 at 9:32 PM
As Black Friday draws to a close, I wanted to highlight some of the ways social networking played a part.
PETITIONING BLACK FRIDAY
Leading up to Black Friday, a Target employee started an online petition asking that Thanksgiving be saved. The reason, according to the petition: “A midnight opening robs the hourly and in-store salary workers of time off with their families on Thanksgiving Day.” In other words, employees would have to end the festivities early so they could get a full night’s rest before arriving at work that evening. Employee Anthony Hardwick from Omaha, Nebraska, got more than 200,000 people to “sign” the petition on Change.org. The move got a lot of press, but Hardwick was unsuccessful. Target opened as midnight as planned, and it seems the petition only helped to advertise the earlier start time.
Here’s my story about the petition:
NO MORE CYBER-MONDAY
Why wait until Monday to get deals online? According to this article by The San Francisco Chronicle, people didn’t even wait until Black Friday. Online sales on Thanksgiving Day jumped by 39 percent compared to last year. It seems most shoppers must have gotten what they wanted, because on Black Friday, online sales only increased by 20 percent.
PEPPER SPRAY VIDEO
It happens every year. Shoppers get out of control over an item and someone gets hurt. This year, a woman pepper sprayed people while trying to get a discounted X-box game. We usually had to rely on TV cameras or surveillance video to see what happened. Thanks to a shopper with a video camera, we can see the drama unfold on YouTube:
MALLS TRACK YOUR PHONE
New this year: Malls are using technology that tracks cell phones so they know how customers move about the mall. This is happening so malls can get a better understanding of shoppers habits and figure out a way to entice them to buy more. According to this article in ars technica, identifying information isn’t being collected. It’s a trial run, and one of the malls is reportedly in Richmond, Virginia. (Personally, I hope it shows malls that they need more escalators. I hate having to walk a half mile to get from floor 2 to floor 1).
ANALYZING TWEETS
Leading up to Black Friday, Mashwork studied tweets and found out who was talking about shopping and what they would buy. According to their infographic:
– More men tweeted about Black Friday
– Most people planned to buy items for themselves
– Most people planned to shop at WalMart, followed by Best Buy
– The most popular item to buy is a shoe: the Black Air Jordan Cement 3s
In other words– there’s no long six degrees of separation between me and anyone else. Now there’s just a little less than five. As a journalist, I’ve noticed this to be true. I’ve had to make fewer phone calls to get to the person I’m looking for. Spokespeople seem to respond faster (most of them). And sometimes all I have to do is mention what I’m doing and people come to me.
What do you think about this new revelation? Is it great? Or is it scary?
I’ll let you ponder these questions while watching this hilarious Kevin Bacon commercial (just my opinion):
I drove up to Urbana, Maryland (in Frederick County) today to do a story about two garage fires that happened at the same time and within two blocks of each other. Fire damage is often a very visual scene. I snapped a picture with my iPhone camera, uploaded the photo to Camera+ and added some enhancements (brightening the photo and blurring the edges so people’s eyes would go straight to the burned out cars). Then I added the photo to Instagram and shared it on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Foursquare.
As soon as I was done at this fire scene, I went around the block to the next. The next garage was full of debris. I added this caption: “Here’s the second garage destroyed by fire. Family’s son luckily had just taken car out to run an errand. #news @wusa9.” It got 158 “likes” and 9 comments on Instagram.
As Black Friday draws to a close, I wanted to highlight some of the ways social networking played a part.
