New Media Unit

"Twitter is celebrating its 7th birthday with a video showing a short history of the service, from its humble beginnings and co-founder Jack Dorsey's first tweet, to the present day, when it boasts 200 million users."

"Will this experiment in free-market journalism work, and no matter the outcome, what does it say about the future of the trade? Sullivan, in many ways, is sui generis. He was one of the first mainstream journalists to start blogging, back in 2000, and he has built a large and loyal following-a real community of people who share his interests (everything from politics to poetry), and his take on those interests. The question is whether that's enough to support a business that currently employs seven people. As Sullivan put it, "We have almost no precedents for where we want to go." "

"In 2012, a continued erosion of news reporting resources converged with growing opportunities for those in politics, government agencies, companies and others to take their messages directly to the public."

""We are in the second phase of disruption, and I think this job is a great place to think about and participate in some of the ways we go forward," he said. "I think the great digital journalism of our age has yet to be created. The cohort that is at Columbia now is the one that will be making the journalism that is going to shape our democracy: working on mining data sets, creating video that is not 2012, coming up with much more powerful ways of accruing and displaying information.""

"While much industry attention of today's era of new-media companies is focused on the likes of BuzzFeed, Vox Media, NowThisNews, The Atlantic's Quartz, The Magazine, and PandoDaily, one publication with a decidedly old-school approach to news is finding success with what is increasingly looking like an old-school medium. the SCOTUSblog drills down deep into one issue, the Supreme Court of the United States, and in an old-fashioned reverse-chronological weblog format."

"In a breaking news situation, journalists get an adrenaline rush. There is a palpable eagerness to get the scoop, to be the first to bring the story to the public. In today's world of social media, mobile phones, and the real-time 24/7 news cycle, though, journalists face competition from all sides: eyewitness accounts, official sources, and even friends and family are sharing news before mainstream news institutions have "published" the official news story. To illustrate this predicament, I compiled 26 tweets that "broke" the Boston Marathon bombing news."

"Fox News, ABC and CNN reported Wednesday afternoon that an arrest had been made in the Boston Bombing case. It turned out not to be true. Here is a collection of some of the bulletins from Twitter."

"Are a bunch of Internet "vigilantes" behaving more responsibly than professional journalists in the hunt for the Boston bombers?"

"Don't watch cable news. Shut off Twitter. You'd be better off cleaning your gutters."

I work at the Poynter Institute, where I teach and advise all kinds of journalists, including professionals, activists, amateurs, the Fourth Estate and the Fifth Estate, to tell stories and provide information that supports democracy. Here's our website: www.poynter.org Here's my faculty page: http://about.poynter.org/about-us/our-people/kelly-mcbride Here's my personal website: www.kellymcbride.com

"So what can we take away from events like today in Boston? We can think about how we read about it. And in the era of everyone having a voice and a blog and the power to create content, it might help to think a little bit like a journalist."

"It was another sad case of jumping the gun. Two days after the bombings at the Boston Marathon, the AP reported that a suspect was in custody and would be brought to court. Sources at other news orgs including CNN confirmed that, leading hundreds of reporters to show up outside court. The problem? They were wrong. (Read an entire timeline of this on Buzzfeed here). So when news breaks, who do you trust now? Cable news? Broadcast news? Friends on social media? It seems harder and harder to decide these days, but pick your poison (or "none of the above") in our poll, or share your extended views in the comments."

Three years ago, World Press Photo expanded its awards to multimedia productions. They just announced this year's winners, and, let me tell you, it's pretty impressive. You might also be interested in The Best "World Press Photo" Winners. Here are the links to this years multimedia winners, as well as to awardees from previous years:"