How journalists and newsrooms can utilize threads to enhance their reporting
2 min Best Practice
2 min Best Practice
A journalist's job is to be on top of the story. Increasingly, that means informing readers off the page and on Twitter.
By stringing multiple Tweets together into threads, reporters can break down complex stories into their component parts and provide context to the headlines.Threads allow journalists to show how they got from point A to point B in their reporting, while encouraging readers to join the conversation.
If you’re new to this feature, check out this step-by-step guide on how to create your own threads.
1/ Thread: Here’s everything we know about immigrant children being separated from their families. #ZeroTolerance #separatingchildren #ImmigrantChildren https://t.co/EVAs1l8u5q pic.twitter.com/2V4SZ83gAD
— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) June 18, 2018
In a 24-hour news cycle, stories unfold quickly. With threads, journalists can break news with a timely Tweet, then return and add new developments as more details emerge. Attaching photos, videos, and articles to threads help bring the story to life.
Threads can have a long lifespan. Some newsrooms are even using them to showcase their archives, or illuminate journalists from decades in the past. An asset for every newsroom, threads don’t just tie Tweets together, they bring journalists, and stories together, too.
1. Hello everyone, I wanted to share what I learned from the more than 15,000 pages of ISIS documents that my team and I unearthed over five different trips to Iraq. We recovered the records in 11 different cities and towns. First up, how we found them. https://t.co/nZHqzlRfne
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) April 5, 2018
The public rarely gets to see how stories are put together. Threads let journalists bring their followers behind the scenes and inside their reporting. Journalists can accompany their threads with photos, and make followers feel like a part of the reporting process by responding to comments and questions about the thread.
Whether a newsroom is launching an investigative series, a journalist is writing a monthly column, or a reporter is simply collecting his or her thoughts on a topic, threads are an effective way to draw connections between individual Tweets over a longer time span.
1/We’re going to be doing accountability journalism in 2017, motivated by the needs of this particular moment: https://t.co/Hn5WmB0lm0
— ProPublica (@ProPublica) January 20, 2017
As of Oct 8:
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 9, 2017
• 88% of Puerto Rican customers are without electricity
• 74% in the U.S. Virgin Islands are without electricity, FEMA reports pic.twitter.com/nrQaViX3ou