"When dawn spreads its paintbrush on the plain, spilling purple... ," Sons of the Pioneers theme for TV show "Wagon Train." Dawn on the mythic Santa Fe Trail, New Mexico, looking toward Raton from Cimarron. -- Clarkphoto. A curmudgeon artist's musings melding metaphors and journalism, for readers in more than 150 countries.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Sporty storyteller, Skype, Holograms next?

Mike Sherman's twitter page
@okieprof
Ask Mike Sherman a question about twitter and @MikeSherman answers by telling stories, stories about people and sports.
Mike, a graduate of our UCO journalism program in the 1980s is now sports editor of the Tampa Bay Times, after holding the same position at our student newspaper, The Vista, and The Oklahoman.
He's an earlier adopter of twitter and considers it essential to covering sports, or anything else for that matter, for a newspaper.
Class member Ryan Dunn's pix and tweet and question.
I bet it won't be 10 years.
He's also an earlier adopter of the twitter for media class when it was first offered in December, 2014...12 versions ago.
Technology met technology as we "Skyped" him in for the second time. He in his newsroom, while watching people in flip flops and shorts outside in Florida, while we shivered with freezing temperatures outside.
The stories he tells are punctuated with specific dates and people of games that long ago, so as a journalist he's a model of how to use twitter professionally.
After the session, we debriefed, and her are some student comments, including a few from four years ago, dutifully recorded by @MadisonSturgill.

  • He’s hired people he found on twitter, checking their work
  • A storyteller, one for every point
  • Talked about “Mr. Unreliable”
  • Worked for The Oklahoman for almost 30 years
  • He’s not going to hire someone without a twitter presence
  • Twitter isn’t the only place to use but it’s a heck of a start
  • Can’t live without twitter
  • All news is “breaking” these days
  • Views himself as a friend of the readers
  • Our classes have changed the curriculum at UCO
  • Even though everyone wants to get paid it’s a compliment when someone is interested in your work
  • Goes to different writers to increase his traffic
  • How you conduct yourself on twitter shows how you are as a person
  • Try not to use absolutes on twitter
  • He uses twitter as a phonebook (found a vet for his old yellow lab)
  • Finding out what’s important. That’s how you use twitter
  • Watches the game while using twitter at work
  • Cautioned us about the negative side of twitter and to be careful
  • Be an early adopter. It opens up new ideas
  • Twitter can be “all bad and a bag of chips” but it can also be good
  •  You have to distribute your own content
  • You're your own paperboy
  • Liked the “What’s the Headline” and the use of reader involvement
  • Staying connected and getting connected is important
  • Conversation is the most important technological medium
  • Twitter is one of the greatest listening devices of all time and one of the greatest search engines
  • After "Mr. Unreliable," he went on twitter and asked the public what ideas were for headlines, admitting they were wrong to lighten the mood about the situation
  • The paper is a way of answering questions for the people that can’t ask them themselves


1 comment:

  1. I love your twitter classes. Lots of good info. I am not a good twitter user, I mainly bash Trump.
    Strangely, since I have stepped back at work I have a lot more time for Linked in. I have had several posts with over 10,000 views. I get a lot more exposure there than any other medium. A lot more interaction also which is what I am really after.

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