Nieman Foundation at Harvard
Editor’s Note: Our sister publication Nieman Reports is out with its winter issue, which focuses on changes in beat reporting. We’re highlighting a few entries that connect with subjects we follow in the Lab, but we encourage you to read the whole issue. In this piece Denver Post sportswriter Lindsay Jones talks about how Twitter became part of her day job.
My name is Lindsay Jones, and I am a Twitter-holic.
OK, I admit it. I didn’t take to this Twitter revolution right away. Soon after I joined The Denver Post in the summer of 2008 to be the beat reporter for the Denver Broncos, my editor asked me to tweet as part of my routine at training camp. Twitter wasn’t well known back then, and I remember wondering why anyone would possibly want to receive a 140-character message from training camp or during a nationally televised game.
I did it anyway, and boy, was I wrong.
By the next spring, Twitter — along with other social media — was playing a huge role in my coverage. Tweets were now as big a part of my job as filing stories for the paper, just as they were for my NFL sports writing colleagues. Twitter has completely changed the way we cover football, as I’m sure it has changed all other sports beats.
The Denver Post’s Broncos Twitter account was launched during my first training camp with the team. Since then close to 14,000 tweets have been sent — the majority from me. Nearly all relate directly or indirectly to the Broncos and the NFL, a combination of breaking news from me or my Post partners, analysis (particularly during games), and some back and forth with the public. Some are auto tweets from our Broncos and NFL print and online news stories, columns and analysis.
