Articles

Journalism & the Boston Marathon Bombings

From left, David Beard, Cheryl Fiandaca, and Seth Mnookin, speaking at the Nieman Foundation on May 1. Photo by Jonathan Seitz“One of the things that’s happening with Twitter is the…

Social Media and the Boston Bombings

Nieman Visiting Fellow Hong Qu analyzes the role social media played in breaking the news of the Boston Marathon attack

“The Story of a Lifetime”

Brian McGrory, 51, was named editor of The Boston Globe just four months before the Boston Marathon bombings captured the world’s attention. Ten days into that coverage, McGrory spoke with…

Curation Is the Key to Bringing Social Media and Journalism Together

How journalists can curate social media streams

The (New) Industry Standard: Making Citizen Broadcasters into Citizen Journalists

When everyone is a publisher, everyone should be a journalist, too

Reporting on Radicalization

Massachusetts Institute of Technology student Hajar Boughoula of Tunisia writes a message on the ground with chalk near a makeshift memorial for fallen MIT police officer Sean Collier on the…
Organize the Noise: Tweeting Live from the Boston Manhunt

Organize the Noise: Tweeting Live from the Boston Manhunt

A reporter and a programmer on what social media coverage of the Boston bombings means for journalism

Mapping the Twitterverse

Using his Massively Parallel Database (MaPD), MIT researcher Todd Mostak was able to visualize how quickly news of the Boston Marathon bombings spread on Twitter. His system can map millions…

Signal vs. Noise in Coverage of the Boston Marathon Bombings

One tweeter boasted of a "game-changing victory" for crowdsourcing in the early hours of the Boston area manhunt. But what began as a low-grade fever on social media spiked with…

Public Service Work

Margaret Engel, a longtime champion of nonprofit journalism, hopes more foundations (including small, locally based ones) will start to recognize the essential public service work of news organizations—and will realize…