Social Media Club | Columbia If you get it, share it

In October we’ll be hosting our first and most informative meeting where the future of journalism meets social media. Our panelist will consist of social media columnist Jeff Elder, professor and community journalist Doug Fisher, media futurist Dan Conover, Columbia city reporter Adam Beam, and anchorwoman Holly Bounds.

132/365: i saw it on your keyboard by isabel bloedwater, on Flickr

We’ve worked hard to collect the best and brightest from South Carolina as we navigate into the future of the field of journalism.

In the spirit of transparency, we are posting the questions that we hope our panelist will discuss. While we don’t expect to cover all of the questions here, we promise to engage in meaningful dialog and hope you’ll join us:

• Thursday, October 8
• Newsplex
• 5:30-7pm

If there is a question that you would like to ask, you can leave your response in the comments section. If you have a question for an individual person, please identify who the question is for.

We look forward to seeing you all in October at our meeting!

Please meet our panelists:

Adam Beam | New Media Reporter

Bio: Winner of the Hampton Gonzales award at The State Media Company, Beam is now working as the Columbia city reporter that uses audio, video and twitter to help add value to his beat reporting. He also runs the metrodesk blog in addition to writing stories daily.

Questions for Adam Beam:

• How has being a mobile journalist affected your job? Have you seen any improvements in how reporting is done?
• Should reporters ‘friend’ sources on facebook, twitter?
• How should reporters approach a blog? Is there a tried and true method?
• How has audio/video enhanced your reporting?
• Are local newspapers in the best position to survive this storm based on their coverage?
• How local and detailed should you go in your blog?

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Holly Bounds | TV Reporter

Bio: Holly Bounds joined WSAV (Savannah) in 2006 as a one-person-band reporter covering the SC Lowcountry region. In March of this year, she took the title to the next level by adding the duties of Anchor/Producer of My Lowcountry 3, a one-hour news show dedicated to South Carolina news. Much of the show’s content relies heavily on viewer input during the day through Twitter, Facebook, and Skype.

Questions for Holly Bounds:

• How will sites like Qik and Mogolus affect the role of the TV anchor? Will it unbundle tv media the same way the Internet has unbundled print media allowing greater control of news?
• How do journalist source information from friends on Social Media? How do you attribute sources?
• What are some ways that journalist could interact with readers? Would you suggest crowd sourcing questions if you were interviewing someone famous?
• How can media companies and TV stations manage partnerships? Should they share info? Are we “really” competitors?
• How should anchors attribute stories to media companies?
• Should anchors tease stories on twitter the way they tease stories on air? Isn’t twitter more immediate? Can’t your provide the link then instead of later?
• What is the role of a journalists “personal brand?”

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Dan Conover | Media Futurist

Bio: Dan Conover spent 20 years in the newspaper business, much of it as an assigning editor in Charleston. 10 years later, he became a digital journalist creating The Post and Courier’s first blog and podcast. His blogging about media futurism has been cited by many, and he’s currently hawking his unpublished novel The Key to Darbas as an experiment in social media networking and copyright reform.

Questions for Dan Conover:

• What’s the best way for media companies to move from a print first to a web first mentality?
• How will mobile computing pay into the future of journalism?
• Should media companies focus on developing the semantic web on their sites?
• Will the singularity save journalism? :)
• What are your thoughts on Augmented Reality and data relationships in journalism?
• Content Managment Systems for media companies, cloud-based (Drupal) or client-based (CCI)
• Discuss how the general-interest product has become obsolete.

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Jeff Elder | Social Media Columnist

Bio: Columnist Jeff Elder spent a year in Silicon Valley studying social networking at Stanford University, visiting Twitter and Facebook and meeting the companies’ leaders. He writes about how our lives intersect online.

Questions for Jeff Elder:

• How can reporters leverage social media for their beat?
• Do reporters need to be on every social media platform?
• Should reporters moderate comments on their own stories?
• Should media companies publish a twitpic photo from an event? How would you attribute, compensate the person?
• How should media companies use social media for advertising? Is there a solution?
• Should your company have a social media policy?

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Doug Fisher | Journalism Professor

Bio: A longtime print and broadcast reporter/editor/producer and then AP news editor who now professes journalism at the University of South Carolina. Fisher’s interests center on editing and writing and on editors and the challenges they face in a changing environment. Fisher is convinced editors are not being trained enough to face these challenges, but that common sense rules the day.

Questions for Doug Fisher:

• How is the institutional knowledge of a newsroom different than the collective knowledge of your readers?
• When it comes to the public’s role in journalism, can the public be trusted without introducing bias?
• How do community bloggers fit into the larger role of online sites and media companies?
• What could be the possible role of the hyper-local news bureau?
• What roles in the newsroom could papers crowd-source? Would a micro-payment service work for rewarding help?
• Do we miss the point of hyperlocal? Should we be approaching communities from the ground up?

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General questions for the panel

• What will the future of journalism look like?
• What effects will tools like Twitter, Facebook, Real-Time and Semantic Web have on journalism?
• Will journalism continue to be a one-way street where journalist only need to know a single trade to survive?
• Why should users pay for your news when they can get it for free?
• Is there such a thing as credibility online?
• Ryan Sholin and Scott Karp recently discussed an idea of re-bundling media in the form of an application similar to a cross between iTunes and RSS readers. Should papers research products like like this?
• What is/are the biggest issue(s) you’re dealing with in your industry right now?
• Are blogs like Gawker helping or hurting media companies by re-writing their content while providing attribution?
• media companies focus to much on how they publish and not enough on how readers consume media. Would/Should media companies consider the idea of P.O.D (Publishing on Demand)?

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Questions about the future of journalism:

• How will e-readers impact media companies?
• How about the idea of an all in one media delivery system like the Apple TV?
• Is Google our friend, enemy or a frenemy?
• How do you know which tool to use when telling a story? Podcasts, video, photos, print.
• What is the future of media convergence?
• Are readers suffering from web overload?
• On transparency, how do you ensure accuracy and no-bias in a multimedia environment?
• How can media companies use hNews?
• How can media companies use publish2 to be aggregators at their own game?
• Chris Anderson has written the long tail, which applies to news archives and Free: which applies to paywalls. Which strategy should media companies pick?
• Are pageviews the golden egg for online? Are there other alternatives for engagement? such as?
• Why should media companies develop location based apps? Are datelines through?
• How can media companies use QR-Codes in print and online?
• What’s the best way for employees to shake the idea of being print first? Why does FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt) rule the newsroom?
• Is the static article dead?
• What are reasonable deadlines for news stories?
• Will newspapers survive in their current model? Should we depend on innovation and startups to replace us?

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Questions about Social Media in Journalism:

• How do you build online communities?
• Can we use social networking to build community?
• Should reporters use facebook, twitter as a place for sources? Should they have a personal AND work page?
• How transparent should journalist be on social networks?
• Should reporters be reward for better metrics online? Would that produce an echo chamber of news?
• How do we reach and engage audiences who have never consumed our product before?
• What about the idea of a single login system like Facebook Connect?
• Should media companies even allow anonymous comments? Are they just a holdover system of the 90′s?
• How can media companies use Real-Time engagement?
• Should newspapers put their content on every channel available or pick a select few?
• Should tweets answer the what why blog posts/stories answer the why?
• How do we moderate communities online?