VCU Capital News Service uses Twitter to post up-to-the-minute General Assembly happenings.
The popular social media site Twitter increases the speed that breaking news reaches the public and gives journalists another avenue to relay information immediately on the Web.
This latest trend — known as micro-blogging — hit Virginia Commonwealth University’s Capital News Service curriculum this semester. The 15-year School of Mass Communications student program provides free, in-depth reporting of the state government to Virginia’s community newspapers.
“Every year we look at how we can use CNS to help students develop skills that the industry needs,” said Jeff South, CNS director and associate professor in the VCU School of Mass Communications.
By integrating Twitter into the curriculum, students experience a new model of breaking news, which forces them to write a news burst — or lead — immediately following a newsworthy event.
“What journalists have found is by being forced to do that news burst, your other stories — the more traditional, full-length stories — are going to be better because you have already thought through what you are going to write about,” South said. “We’ve found that Twitter has made us better writers on multiple levels.”
In addition to writing standard news stories, students post multiple tweets about state government issues during the Virginia General Assembly. A tweet contains a maximum of 140 characters, about the length of a few short sentences.
“We mostly pull out the lead and summarize it,” said Matthew S. Conway, CNS editor and VCU senior. “I think the way we use it works great because it gets the information out there quicker and puts more interest in our stories.”
Wireless Internet at the General Assembly enables CNS students to tweet up-to-the-minute news happenings from anywhere.
“If you can text message on your phone, you can tweet,” Conway said.
Since starting the Twitter feed in January 2009, CNS students have posted more than 200 tweets and have more than 100 followers, or subscribers.
