The Canadian Association of Journalists is holding a one-day conference in Toronto on Saturday 30 January on the theme of innovating the news.

The aim is to learn about “emerging techniques, technologies and models to transform journalism for the 21st century”.

There is a great line-up and I’m honoured to have been asked to participate. I’ll be holding a session on social media principles and practice, which is a lot to pack into 45 minutes.

I could spend all the time going through the dozens of Twitter sites, services and apps.  But I am only going to mention a handful that can be used for beat reporting and crowdsourcing by journalists:

  • Twitter Search: An obvious starting point for anyone new to Twitter.
  • What the Trend: Find out what is popular on Twitter, worldwide or by country.
  • Listorious: A way to find people and topics on Twitter lists.
  • Twitter Local: A desktop app to follow public tweets from around your location.

I realise this is only a snapshot of what is out there. For a comprehensive listing of articles, sites and services related to social media and Twitter, I recommend the site of the social media skills course developed by Sree Sreenivasan and Adam Glennat the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.  There is a wealth of material here to explore and discover.

If you have a favourite site, service or app you use to enhance your journalism, please leave a comment.


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