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As journalists and reporters covering the story, the noise online might seem overwhelming. Unless you’re on the ground, it may seem difficult at times to distinguish what is credible. What sources can you trust? What pictures and videos are real? There are new tools and sites we use to best curate what is going on in real-time. Here are our top 5 who have helped us navigate the social conversation around evolving stories like Occupy Wallstreet.
1) Storify.com describes itself as “all the stories happening on social media”. Just go to the front page, and you’ll see headlines of stories including the best tweets, Facebook updates, YouTube videos and photos taken by members of the socialsphere. The posts are curated by influencers and publishers, and are best used during breaking news and evolving stories like OWS. Just embed the stories directly on your site or blog, and even if you go in and edit them, they will be automatically updated. Just got browse the Occupy section right now and you’ll see what conversations have been curated around the movement everywhere from New York to Calgary.
2) Storyful.com “uses the power of social networks to create an authentic, cooperative and socially useful journalism.” What great about this platform is also the people behind it who have old school journalistic chops with new school innovation and techniques- Editorial Director David Clinch was formerly as Senior Editor at CNN International. Just go to the site, and you’ll see tweets and videos from the ground vetted by the team. They have used this expertise to partner with YouTube as well and help them curate viable citizen videos. Here is the story they had compiled for Thursdays protests.
3) YouTube – while the platform has been quick to brush off their own “editorial” Â and “curation” to the site leaving discovery to algorithms, we have seen a few glimpses of it on CitizenTube, YouTube News, YouTube Politics and YouTube Trends. YouTube Trends has become as important as getting on “front page”. The section has grown good ties with blogs and news outlets, sending updates of the “Top 4 at 4” for both the morning and afternoon news cycles. YouTube Politics is currently measuring the popularity of 2012 presidential candidates through the filter of their YouTube popularity and views. If you go to the front page of CitizenTube right now, you can see their latest playlist including videos from protesters participating in the Occupy Wall Street across the country.
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5) Sulia.com is great at finding influencers to follow who are experts around certain stories and verticals. We all seem to trust our friends and followers more than publishers these day, and Sulia creates great lists around those topics we are passionate about or news beats that we’re covering. Go to the site and search for your story. Sulia will offer up “trending sources” as well as “top sources” to follow. You also sign in via Facebook and Twitter to add your thoughts to their social media feed.
