I react to the news, but my obvious first thought is to tweet it out. I dig around for the link from the LA Times — who broke the story and were credited by SportsCenter — and I find the tweet from the @latimes account (not to get off track, but link to your own story, @latimes, not the home page). I retweet @latimes (adding the shortened URL I’d just created to the story) and watch the coverage.

I get a retweet or two before the tweet from @espn surfaces.

Now, while it’d be nice to link directly to the source, I understand not doing so. @espn linked to its own article on its Web site. Again, that’s fine, but here’s what I see when I open the story.

ESPN.com correctly credited the Los Angeles Times with the story, but do you notice there’s no link to the story itself? The following two grafs (and maybe more, but that’s my screengrab) also credit the Times. How hard is it to link to the LAT story within your own copy? Is it a content management system issue? Is it just accepted from mainstream news sources that you credit, but don’t credit your source? There’s no excuse for not linking. Simple as that.

Here’s the other rub: As of 11:33 a.m., the @latimes account has 18,686 followers, while @espn has 99,378 followers. As the minutes passed, here was the standard tweet that came across my window from the interested of the 400 people I follow.

That link from @ChrisDuel went to the ESPN.com story. Again, I understand that with 80,000 more followers, there’s going to be far more people seeing @espn’s tweets than @latimes. Hell, I don’t follow the @latimes account, but I do follow @espn. What is so hard for ESPN.com news services (and other media outlets) to link? Bloggers are well-versed in quoting and linking. Is it a CMS issue? Something deeper? At my news organization’s Web site, we have to code links, but I do it anyway, especially if I have information from another source. The San Antonio Express-News reported a story of a City Council candidate being taken to task for claiming victories in her district from when she wasn’t on the council. We hadn’t reported that story, so I obviously can’t write the information without crediting the source. But it’s not just saying, “the SAEN reported,” they deserve their due. Give them the link.

The reason I link, especially since it appears it’s simply acceptable to credit the source, is because I believe it builds credibility with your online audience. If your news organization presents the most information possible for its readers, the readers will reward you with their trust and continued traffic. I’m a firm believer.

Last week, a tornado touched down in a nearby county. Two of the three TV stations kept their weather coverage going (break-ins or continuous coverage), but while I’m writing the story based off the calls we’d made, I notice a tweet from our competitor about damage to some homes. We had their coverage on our TV with the volume turned up, so I heard the sheriff they cited say what he said. Much as I did this morning, I retweeted. A few minutes later, I received a DM from a follower asking, “Is this the dawn of a new day? Are we seeing you RT the competition’s info? Social media breaks down the rules of traditional media.” I responded by saying the news is more important than the competition. When people want to know, especially when it comes to breaking news or severe weather, they want the info. They don’t care where they get it from as long as it’s a source they trust.

Minutes later, I see this blog post come from a local public relations firm (full disclosure: I co-founded a local Twitter-based lunch meetup group with one of this agency’s account executives and an editor from a business news organization).

But today, April 27, 2009, at 4 p.m. Central time, I saw something that turned that on its ear. The local ABC affiliate, KSAT 12, retweeted a news item from its NBC affiliate rival, News 4 WOAI. It involved the report of damage from a tornado that touched down in DeWitt County. Even more impressive than the retweet was the use of good Twitter etiquette as KSAT credited WOAI.

During my 20 years, I had thousands of my stories read verbatim on the air by talent that did nothing more than read the paper. So the giving of credit stunned me. My officemate, who spent 18 years in TV, commented that no station would EVER credit another station on air.

It shouldn’t have been a big shock. @ksatnews and @mySA (the account for the San Antonio Express-News) have been retweeting the others’ comments or stories when they’re relevant to our readers, but I will admit, it’s the first time I’ve retweeted @news4woai. At a business lunch later in the week, I explained my reasoning to a larger audience and had nothing but positive responses from those in attendance (I did have the standard, “Did you get in trouble?” question, but I’m lucky in that we feel the same way in our newsroom).

Back to Manny for a bit. It was pointed out to me that @ptishow (the Twitter account for ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption”) linked to the LA Times story. (Thanks, @alansmodic.)

That’s great. It’s likely a human account whose muse is versed in digital media and how crediting works (or at least it should).

What I’m trying to say is that it shouldn’t be an issue to source another news organization’s work online. It builds credibility when you do so and it’s simply the right thing to do, especially when journalists and the media are fighting to keep and regain credibility in an already faltering industry. I’d love for ESPN.com to link to the LA Times when it comes to a big story (or any story, really), but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

Sure, the Chuck Taylors are a classic image, but it doesn’t say much about me, especially when you consider I haven’t actually worn a pair in many years. It’s time for a return of the new. If you’ve read this far, please continue as the lessons I’ve taken away should help you, too.

While it’s hard to see, you can see I had a personalized Twitter back when I was temporarily stationed at Local10.com in Miami, Fla., during impending Hurricane Ike coverage. I’m not sure exactly why I changed it, but Andi convinced me it’s time to return.

Like the TwitTip post says, your background is your first impression on Twitter. If anyone is debating whether to follow you or not a background can help them figure out whether they share a common interest with you and can give them a sense of what kind of person you are - professional, personable, fun, serious, etc. Customized backgrounds are one step towards establishing your personal brand as well. If you have a blog or other social network profiles it helps if your background matches or is somewhat cohesive with the rest of your online personalities. Multiple identities is something that many of us struggle with on the Web but the more time you invest in customizing each of those indentities in order to create some unity the easier it will be for others to wrap their heads around who you are.

Far be it for me to not take the opportunity to shameless self-promote, but I just wrote a post about personal branding (or as I explain in the post, online identity) as a teaser for the SAMPRB tweetup later this week. I won’t go into additional details, but that post can be found on the SAMPRB blog.

Back to my upcoming Twitter back, I will also use this time to clean up, update and organize various profiles and social networks where I can be found. My Facebook, LinkedIn, Wired Journalists, Flickr and Publish2 accounts will all be worked on this week as I also work on my Twitter background. I’ve also made the decision this weekend to use my Facebook account as more than just a personal way to stay connected with people. I will use it as another public profile instead (which mainly means removing my phone number except for certain friends and being a little more willing to accept friend requests than I have been in the past).

As I explained to Andi, I have a little less than seven days to complete this task (of the background, certainly, but the added online profile work, too) or I owe her a drink at Olmos Perk.

Why am I sharing this? Well, it’s 6:39 a.m., according to the coffeemaker that I’ve been sitting next to for the last 45 minutes.

Why am I sitting here? Well, I usually wake up during the night, but at various times this early morning, I’ve been stirred by grunts and my name being said. I’m staying at the home of my friend Mike’s brother, Matt, because we’re going to the Texas Rangers game on Opening Day.

The last time I woke up, I decided to check my phone for e-mail, and something made me look at Facebook, too. Well, I see my buddy Brett’s status message complaining about my snoring. Also added to the 10 comments was the host’s complaints about my snoring, too.

Is it bad that I snore and kept everybody awake? Yeah, totally my fault. One of the comments from Brett on his Facebook was (and I’d quote it, but I’m writing this on my Treo) that he recorded a video of me snoring so he could justify whatever happened if he didn’t get sleep. I also noticed a picture he took of himself and posted to Twitter. The pic is of him in an obvious aggravated moment. Here’s the rub, though, and why I’m writing what I’m writing.

What good is social media to us if we fail to be social?

Two guys (one friend, the other nice enough to allow me into his home for three nights) didn’t get enough sleep because they couldn’t tap me on my arm (they both were less than 5 feet from me) and say something. Matt even joked earlier when I asked if it was OK for me to plug in my phone charger, so why would it be any different for me to accommodate my friends and our host?

Social media is great. We even joked on the drive up here that I’m a social media evangelist, because I love its uses, and it’s brought more of us together, but rather than interact with those around us to our own benefits, we post about it to the interact with everybody but those around us?

We can’t forgo our audiences (or our friends) simply to entertain the thoughts of those who will quip, but ultimately serve us little to no benefit in the immediate moment. It also works for those of us in the media. If we use the wrong tools to communicate, it ultimately serves little benefit and brings no return on our time investment. The tools may also be correct, but used incorrectly.

I’m a big Twitter guy. I love it for its ability to share information over a broad network in seconds. It works for us in our newsroom by sharing stories we think are of interest to our followers. When it doesn’t work is when we fail to communicate with those we care about (our readers). Media consumers no longer want to be talked to, they want to communicate.

Not only do they want to contribute to the story, but they want to be listened to and provide ideas.

When we use the right tools for the wrong jobs, we accomplish nothing. Except for the laughs we’ll have when I post Brett’s video of me snoring. Maybe I’ll be a YouTube hit for 15 minutes.

A friend trying to have some fun began speaking about an on-air competitor and was joined in by that competitor’s co-worker. Well, the boss found out and wanted the person either removed from the page (and not associated with our news brand) or to cut it out. Friend asked to be removed and it’s all good now, but now we need a social media/networking policy in place.

I wanted to ask for people’s experiences with crafting or working within a good policy and help in writing our own. Some of my major concerns are Facebook friending potential news sources and tweeting or posting opinions of news sources. I’ve seen potentially bad examples of both before and don’t want it to become an issue with us.

I’ve spoken with a few people and the examples are pretty far apart. One major newspaper doesn’t have a policy and will deal with issues as they arise while some shops have pretty strict policies that may stifle good usage of social media and social networking in newsgathering or personal-professional uses.

It was really laidback, but I was asked a few questions at one point and we had a very brief discussion about adapting to social media and keeping up (more of a tech how-to rather than philosophical). Rather than bore you with much more, I leave you to a few of the photos (if you were there and took some more, please let me know so I can include them in the slideshow) and a promise of another tweetup before or very early into the summer.

Many thanks and well-wishes go out to: @bkearney, @evaruth, @ghawi, @paulvx, @mysaweathervane, @doublepunching, @norafrost, @sandrasantos, @jeorgez, @jenniferdodd, @rosenda, @jerrygonzalez, @elozano, @espiblog, @ursulapari and Kris Rodriguez for showing up.

UPDATE: Patricio Espinoza (@espiblog) produced a video from the tweet-up. Enjoy.

In planning for this, I had drinks with two of the panelists (Elaine Wolff of the San Antonio Current and Donna Tuttle of the San Antonio Business Journal — the very talented and web-savvy Laura Lorek of the San Antonio Express-News is the fourth panelist). It was great to get people from different media outlets together and start relating how we’re using Web 2.0 tools to reach our respective audiences. The diversity of our audiences means we’ll use different ideas and I think this will be a great panel. I’m really looking forward to getting ideas from people well-versed and comfortable with social and new media.

The next day will also be interesting. I’m speaking at Texas State University (how can I turn down Old Main?) about being Latino and working in the media for the school’s Dia de la communicacion event as part of the Center for Latino Media’s Latino Media Conference. Honestly, it’s a subject that I enjoy speaking of, especially since I can honestly say there’s been very little downside I’ve witnessed. Granted, it may be that I’ve worked in Texas all my life (and even moreso in San Antonio), but there have been some advantages to being Hispanic and working in the media. Omar Gallaga of the Austin American-Statesman and Lydia Saldaña with Texas Parks & Wildlife will be on the panel. I love reading Omar’s blog and I know I’d be honored to yield the floor to a guy with his knowledge and work.

A couple of days later, it’s the first (as far as I know) San Antonio Media Tweetup. So far, there are about 15 people who’ve told me they’re likely coming (12:30 p.m., 2/21, Olmos Bharmacy). If you’re in town, come on by, media or not… just beware that you’re probably going to hear some war stories. No RSVP is necessary, but I’d like a decent head-count.

I’ve suggested Saturday, Feb. 21, at 12:30 p.m., but I would be open to moving times/dates in case a lot of people can’t meet (I’ve been told there’s a Camp going on that day, too). Leave a comment if you’d like to RSVP or have suggestions.

While we call it the “media tweetup,” it’d certainly be open to anybody who’d like to attend. By the way, you can message or follow me on Twitter.

EDIT: The Olmos Bharmacy has also been suggested. I’m open to either, love both places, but let’s try to have this down by this weekend so people can make plans. The Bharmacy is located at 3902 McCullough Road.

EDIT No. 2: The Bharmacy seems to work for a lot of people, so it shall be there.

For the most part, the Internet buzzed for hours and hours as Twitterers patted themselves on the back. Self-congratulatory - and often self-indulgent - posts, complete with links to blog entries about the slow death of the mainstream media and plenty of re-linking to that same photo - viewed almost 40,000 times on TwitPic.com within the first four hours. And later, finally - tweets about being tweeted out.

I think the Twitterverse can withstand some self-indulgent praise, especially considering those who still don’t understand its best qualities. I’m known in my newsroom for saying two things.

1. Everybody will have their moment (or news story) when they notice the tools of newsgathering are changing, and they’ll decide it’s time to learn what works for them.
2. Some tools work well for some people, some don’t. You have to be willing to try them all out to find out, though.

People will be intrigued by social media/social networking at different times, and I know I read many retweets from people hearing positive thoughts about Twitter during a breaking news story. Is it all perfect? Hell, is it even completely correct? Nope. That’s when being able to separate the wheat from the chaff pays off. Journalists still have to be able to find out what’s correct and what’s hearsay, but spreading what’s correct and necessary via Twitter should be celebrated when it works. How many in the media (and for this argument, we’ll ask mainstream) figured Twitter (or at the very least, social media) might just be useful and decide to learn?

Charles Cooper of CNET.com asks:

Before some of you jump ugly on me, let me hasten to mention that I’ve long found Twitter to be extremely useful. But how long before we can move past this “wonder of Twitter” moment? An earthquake in China, the Mumbai massacre, war in Gaza–Twitter’s proved itself as a tool to report and comment on breaking news. If you haven’t been paying attention, Twitter might seem wondrous. For the rest of us, it’s old hat by now.

That’s just it, Charles. There are still many people out there who haven’t been paying attention. The “wonder of Twitter” posts will subside eventually, but since there are still people who don’t understand the new tools, the wonder posts will still follow. I don’t begrudge Twitter for celebrating itself occasionally, but only when it’s deserved.

Newspapers used Barack Obama’s election and the Nov. 5 front pages to give themselves a pat-on-the-back, a quick money grab and remind America one of the reasons they were still important, even if for a day. Twitter can get some love, too.

Just wanted to take a quick timeout (and considering my hiatus, a long time getting back) to mention I returned Sunday from San Juan, Puerto Rico, where I was part of the planning committee for the upcoming 2009 National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention (also in San Juan). I’m one of three track leaders for the online sessions. My cohorts are Robert Hernandez of SeattleTimes.com and Hiram Enriquez, the programming director of Yahoo! Hispanic Americas.

We’ve got a lot of good training sessions and panels planned, and while I can’t say much about them at this moment, I believe these will be great sessions for those who want to learn more about working online. I can say we’re going to have a large focus on multimedia storytelling, social networking and how to use the tools with both (which is my focus for the next few months).

There’s definitely more to come, but we’re pretty excited about the convention, especially trying to help those affected by this tough time in the industry, but don’t think it’s a pity party. We’re focused on teaching and figuring out what’s next, not what’s behind.

Hopefully that answers your question. Please feel free to comment over my mistake and toss out some thoughts on anything I should change from the old site now that it’s a fairly simple fix.