Reflections: Social Media & Journalists

Southbank off Tower Bridge. I love this architecture, it’s functionally beautiful and beautifully functional.

Thinking of the old factory owners of Victorian London, I can’t imagine them building for anything but functional purpose. But their design is now iconic and a cherished part of the city.

I’ll soon be coming to this underrated patch of London every day, as I’m about to join Headshift, as a consultant on the social media team.

At the same time I’ll also be part of Channel 4’s Diversity Production Training Scheme, where I’ll be trained in the many arts and ways of the media.

This means some big changes over the next month, radio documentaries need recording, thesis needs writing and I need to somehow wind down what’s become my mini-empire of freelance work.

It still amazes me how much the G20 Live Experiment has changed my life this year. If you’re not already aware of the project, I put together a of team of fellow international journalists across London reporting the protests live, and fed their tweets, photos, audioboos and even live video streams into one automated mashup site.

I created the site the night before the protests and to our shock we received over 75,000 unique visitors. Our video was featured on the BBC News site, blogged about by the BBC’s Rory Cellan Jones and we were interviewed on BBC Radio 5 afterwards. I know it’s not just been a life changing experience for me but for everyone involved.

So by becoming a social media consultant am I saying goodbye to journalism?

No.

Everyday I see stories around me in the “real” and online world. Social media  for me is just another tool in my journalist’s kit. Social technology gives people voices just as newspapers did in Victorian Britain.

For me, G20 Live is just the beginning. I recently helped out with Reuters at their Ask Nick Clegg event. Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrat party, participated in a live debate online. The debate was truly live, with no schedule and no planned questions as the audience were allowed to fire in as questions while watching live video.

I’m planning to develop my obsession with live media further and am putting together plans for my next multimedia reportage.

In technology and media today we need to be flexible. Throughout my work sometimes I’m the editor, sometimes the reporter, but I’ll always be telling a story.