rain ☔ fall

joshsternberg:

I spoke with The AP’s social media editor, Eric Carvin, about the news organization’s social media strategies.

In the spring of 1845, five New York daily newspapers made journalism history when they founded the New York Associated Press to help incur the costs to deliver news from Texas during the Mexican-American War. After some legal issues between it and the Western Associated Press, which led to the downfall of the NYAP, the Western Associated Press became the Associated Press in 1892 and over the next 150-plus years, has become one of the most important news services in the world.

Beyond delivering news to its 1,700 newspaper and 5,000 television and radio partners, the AP historically sat at the front of news technology innovation. Whether it was introducing the rotary press to speed up printing, bringing in teletypewriters (a printer connected to a telegraph) or launching the WirePhoto Network (ability to send images over phone lines), the AP offered new ways of information distribution. Now it’s confronted with the rise of social media.

Broadly speaking, the AP uses social media in two ways: gathering and disseminating information. The AP approaches each social network differently; what it does on Facebook is different that what it does on Twitter.

“Part of what we’re doing is sharing content in a curated way,” Eric Carvin, the AP’s social media editor said. “It helps as news gathering; if we’re looking to find someone who has amateur video, we put out a call and a good chance we’ll hear back from people.”