Bells and Whistles

     The most important tools in journalism haven’t changed: a reporter’s notebook and a Dixon-Ticonderoga #2 pencil.

      But even the most traditional reporters, those of us from the Pleistocine Era, can’t ignore social media and the tools that control it.

     Which is why a roomful of reporters, many of us Jurassic, at least, assembled in a conference center in Orlando, Fla., in September to hear representatives of the Kiplinger Institute for Public Affairs Journalism present the “Digital Deep Dive.”

      Doug Haddix and Kevin Smith, director and deputy director of the program, laid out a few bells and whistles.

      WEBSTA, for example, searches by hastag. People, apparently, used different hashtags for the same thing. As if life wasn’t confusing enough.

     Perhaps people feel the need to be humorous. So they might, rather than #Trump, use #TribbleHead. Or eschew #ChrisChristie for #ChrisChubbie.

     Perhaps they feel the need to be politically correct. So instead of #CuomoDeBlasioFeud, they might use #TinyDisagreementonEducation.

     Haddix even extolled the merits of Facebook, aka Stalkbook, aka WhereYourGrandparentsHangOutBook.

     Besides being an online bocce court, Facebook is an excellent data base. You can use it to find out where people are from, who they are connected to, etc. Not a bad way to sort our people with common names. Kevin Smith who presented the class is Kevin Z. Smith, as opposed to Kevin Smith who made “Mallrats” or Kevin Smith who was in my son’s Boy Scout troop.

     Even those of us with less-than-common names could find duplicates. There are actually two Jane Primeranos with Shop-Rite courtesy cards.

      Twitter and even the chronically under-utilized LinkedIn can also be used for searches.

      Storify is a hand tool for creating drafts and pulling in social media by clicking and dragging. We dinosaurs like clicking and dragging almost as much as we like cutting and pasting. Google Forms enables you to develop questions and even to restrict the interviewee from skipping questions. Talk about an electronic power trip.

      Of course, during the program we iPad-azians, started having trouble with the browser, Safari.  It seems, according to an abashed IT geek, the wireless internet in the hotel sort of decided Safari is a Communist plot.

     Makes you long for the notebook and the Dixon-Ticonderoga #2 pencil.