Tag: Journalist

Poachers in the Masai Mara and the social web. A great case study.

Update on ranger Leyian who was shot: In total they gave him 6 pints of blood, and are keeping him under observation in case of infections.

That’s the latest tweet from the Mara Triangle on twitter and it illustrates some simple principles of good use of social media for charities and non for profit organisations.

The twitter account is linked to this blog written by the rangers in the Mara Triangle. It’s hosted by wildlife direct, an American charity who seem to be using a wordpressmu (multi-user) installation to offer blogs to a range of animal protection groups. The blog is also supported by image accounts on flickr and video on youtube. Integrating these tools is a key element of using the social web well.

The final element in this jigsaw though is the story. You have to have a story to tell and that means that what you write should be personal.

I hope ranger Leyian recovers quickly.

Hat tip to Robin Hamman.

Birmingham City Council to live stream 2008 election results.

I’ll be watching www.birminghamelections.org.uk/ tomorrow night to see how the service, fronted by Adrian Goldberg, delivers coverage of the local elections results.

It’s a job I’ve done myself – anchoring the Birmingham Results for Radio WM and reporting general and local election results for TV and radio. Days on research and spent preparing preview pieces and briefs for reporters etc. Even then I was expressing frustration with the fact that whilst the BBC was making results available instantly online local authorities didn’t. No RSS feeds of results to allow anyone to upadate their web service live. It seemed to reflect a fear of being the final publisher. Slowly thats changing and I think it is time that councils begin telling their own stories rather than relying on the mediators.

So lets see how it goes.

Update:  click here to see how it went.