Sure enough, when I talk to a journalist who has just started on Twitter, inevitably the question will come up: What’s the tic tac toe thing all about?

Welcome to the hashtag. The hashtag is simply adding a keyword with the pound sign or hash (#), which does look a bit like a tic-tac-toe board, to a tweet. It’s an innovation that evolved organically to help people communicate better on Twitter.

The hashtag has two main purposes:

1. To help sort and organize content.

2. To help people communicate emotion or nuance in their tweets.

Organizing content

The idea here is that you put a hashtag on a tweet that shows the topic of the tweet. For example, in the rash of tweets about the riots in Egypt, people would use #Egypt in their tweets about that issue. 

Using the hashtag makes aggregation of tweets about that topic easier. For example, even today — weeks after the conflict broke — if you throw #Egypt into a Google search, you will get real-time tweets about the issue where people used this hashtag.

 Journalists, look for hashtags and use them in your own tweets. Here is how:

Searching for hashtags

Searching for hashtags is useful for journalists to help find what many people are tweeting about an issue, not just those whom you follow on Twitter. It’s a good way to follow the news through the crowd-sourced tweets of the masses. It helps sort through the barrage of information on Twitter if you are just looking to read about one topic.

Hashtags also offer a clue to what is popular at the moment, which might prompt your own reporting or coverage. If you keep seeing a hashtag for a certain topic, odds are that’s a talk topic as we say in the business.

You can search for hashtags through Google as I did above. You also type the keyword with hashtag into a Twitter search to find all the tweets on that topic, as I have done here for #CharlieSheen. It is important to note that you can type a keyword without a hashtag into a Twitter search, but you will end up with different results, as I do here for Charlie Sheen.

The beauty of searching by hashtag is you get the tweets in which someone purposely added a hashtag, so using this methods focuses your search.

Searching for hashtags is particularly useful for following a live event, like a ball game, public meeting, trial or a conference. Find the hashtag, plunk it into Google or Twitter search and read along.

I’ve started “watching” Syracuse University basketball games this way when I can’t make the game, and it’s great. I can read what the journalists covering the game are tweeting but also what random fans are saying, as well as fans for the other team. This really adds to the whole experience because it’s like having your own, personalized blow-by-blow announcers.

I also have followed hashtags to keep up on what’s going on at a conference I was not able to attend. It’s a useful way to find out the highlights through the lens of conference participants.

How to find the hashtags

It is important to make sure you are searching for the hashtag that most people are using for topic. Sometimes, it becomes clear quickly. When I was watching Syracuse University in the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee stadium, I could tell pretty quickly that #pinstripe was the hashtag of choice.

But sometimes finding out what hashtag is being used most for a particular topic can get confusing. What’s the trend can be helpful tool, as it lists top hashtags of the moment. Hashtags.org is also useful.  You can type in what you think might be the hashtag and see what results you get or try several variations (#pinstripe, #pinstripebowl, etc.). Hashtags.org provides stats on how much the hashtag you typed in has been used recently as well as tweets that contain it. Mashable offers additional tips on using and searching for hashtags.

Using hashtags in your own tweets

For journalists, using hashtags in your own tweets offers many advantages. First, it helps your tweets on a particular topic get aggregated along with other tweets on that topic. For example, back to my Pinstripe Bowl example, if you’re covering the Syracuse Orange versus the Kansas Wildcats for the Syracuse newspaper, obviously you want Syracuse fans to read your tweets. They likely already follow you on Twitter. But you also wouldn’t mind if Kansas fans read your tweets that may contain links to your stories because it expands your reach and readership. Obviously, Kansas fans are unlikely to be following you already on Twitter.

So plunking in #pinstripe into your tweets gets you read by a wider audience than if you don’t.

Using a Twitter hashtag when covering a live event is particularly useful, especially if you are also tweeting other things at the same time. That way people can keep track of what interests them.

Using hashtags to communicate nuance

Another use of the hashtags is to add some personality or emotion to tweets. This evolved, I think, because computer-mediated communication in general can lack the richness of face-to-face communication. I can’t smile or wink or nod or use my body language to show I’m being sarcastic or I’m kidding in a tweet.

Emoticons, the smiley or frowny faces people put in a computer-mediated messages, are an attempt to circumvent this problem. The hashtag is, too.

People have started added commentary to their tweets using the hashtag to show irony or humor or just add some emotion. In a post that every Twitter user should read, Jessica Hische explains this use of the hashtag well.

Hashtags used to convey emotion, feeling, irony.

So why does a journalist need to use hashtags to add some personality to tweets? First, personality on Twitter is a good thing. Twitter is a conversation; it’s not about shouting “me, me, me.” It’s about engaging people virtually, and people who are interesting and funny are more likeable than those who lack these qualities.

Another reason journalists should use the hashtag to add emotion or personality is that it marks you as a Twitter native. No one wants to be the nerdy guy running behind trying to catch up. Journalists need to be leading, not following on social media. One way to do that is to learn to use Twitter well and do so.

Nothing marks you as a newbie quicker than misunderstanding Twitter basics. Twitter, I find, is a pretty forgiving community. So don’t sweat a mistake or two. But for journalism to re-invent itself as it really needs to, it need to radically change not just make minor adjustments, as Mathew Ingram points out in this very important post. “Getting” how to use social media is part of that radical change.

So don’t just dip your toe into the water, leap in. #andhavefundoingit

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A friend, Glenn Coin, has asked me to guest lecture about the ethics of social media for his Utica College journalism class, so I figured I’d blog my lesson plan to save time — and spread the message.

I thought the ethics of social media is a timely topic, given the debate over social media rules that has been waging now for months. It began in the spring when first the Dow Jones Co. and then The New York Times issued social media rules. Then it resurfaced recently when The Washington Post released its rules, and a WaPo editor admitted he quit Twitter, rather than violate the rules.

In the meantime, several ethical moments in social media have taken place, and I’ll got through them each later in this post.

First, what are ethics?

Merriam-Webster defines ethics as:

A set of moral principles : a theory or system of moral values.

What about for journalists?

For journalists, the definition of ethics gets a lot longer. The Society of Professional Journalists offers a long list of what constitutes journalistic ethics, including:  making every effort to be accurate, avoid stereotyping and offering a diversity of viewpoints. It also calls for journalists not to plagiarize and to distinguish between advocacy and news reporting.

So are things any different online?

Online Journalism Review argues no. Journalistic ethics are pretty much the same online as in print or broadcast:  Don’t plagiarize; tell readers how you got your information; don’t accept gifts or money for coverage; tell the truth; be honest.

I agree with OJR. Journalists online must be accurate and honest and strive to tell the truth, and they can’t copy others’ work. (I’d argue that linking isn’t copying, although not everybody agrees with that.)

So are ethics any different on the Web or in social media than in the rest of journalism?

I say no. I think ethics are ethics. You can’t have one set of rules for online and another for print. But I do think the medium impacts how we live out these philosophies, and I’ll get to that more later. When it comes to social media, one of the key questions becomes: If a journalist offers an opinion on Twitter, is that unethical? Does that violate some type of rule? Think about that — and we’ll discuss more later.

Personally, I follow a basic code of ethics that works for me in the face-to-face world, the professional world and online. It’s quite simple:

• First do no harm. I try in every part of my life to avoid doing anything that would hurt another person. (To me, this doesn’t mean writing only good or happy news. But it does mean getting as many sides of the story as possible before writing about something that could put anybody in a bad light. It also means giving a source an adequate chance to repond, not just calling once.)

• Don’t put anything on the Internet (Twitter, Facebook, what have you) that you’d be embarrassed to see on the front page of The New York Times. That means no drunk pictures, nothing “inappropriate,” nothing that accuses another person of something without verified support.

3. Be transparent. That means be honest about what’s going on. If you make a mistake, admit it. If you misunderstood something, acknowledge it. If you inadvertently wrong someone, say you’re sorry and try to fix it. To me, this doesn’t mean you pretend you don’t have opinions. You’re just honest with yourself about how what you’re thinking shapes your worldview.

The bottom line with ethics is it comes from inside you. I can’t tell you how to live any more than you can tell me how to live. Ethics aren’t black and white; they are gray, very gray. If a clerk gave you more change then you should have received, and you noticed in the store, would you return it? (I would.) What if you’d driven home already before you noticed? For me, it would depend on how much more. If it was change or a few dollars, I’d chalk it up to good karma on my part. If it was significant money ($20), I’d mail a check to the store with a note. But you might not, and that’s OK. My code doesn’t have to be yours.

What every journalist, what every person must do is really think about what ethics means and come up with a personal code that reflects that. And then stick by it. Certainly, if you work for a news organization, you’ll be bound by whatever code that organization adopts. But you still need to have your own personal code, and you may need to argue your point — in a nice way.

Don’t fall into the trap of … My boss told me to do it. My editor said it was OK. You know in your gut what’s right. Follow that. Would you be embarrassed if someone knew you did something? Then don’t do it. That queasy feeling we get in our stomach is there for a reason — to stop us from doing something stupid. Feeling guilty in many cases is often a normal response to doing something wrong.

Next, I’m going to go through some recent ethical dilemmas in the sphere of journalistic social media. I’ll tell you whether I think each case was ethical or not, but you need to figure out what you think for yourself. Argue your case. Stand for something. The goal of this exercise isn’t to teach you rules, as I might if I were teaching algebra (solve within the parentheses first, then the exponents, then multiplication and division from left to right, then addition and subtraction from left to right). Ethics is messy or mungy.

Ethics is often case by case because you may encounter a situation you never expected or thought of or that doesn’t mirror anything else that has happened before. Being ethical in practice is easy; living it is harder. (Think of it this way: You find $1,000 in an un-marked envelope in the mall. My ethics say I must return it, even if I have no way of knowing if it will reach its true owner. But it’s a lot harder to do that if your rent is due, and you have no idea how you’ll pay. Believing something is easy. Acting on it can be difficult.)

Some examples:

• The “jackass tweet.” President Barack Obama called hip-hop artist Kanye West a jackass for grabbing the microphone from teen country singer Taylor Swift during the MTV music video. Obama made the comment off the record during an interview with CNBC.  “Nightline” co-anchor Terry Moran tweeted to his more than 1 million followers that the president had called West a jackass.

Right or wrong? I say wrong. The comment was off the record, and that means the journalist should not disseminate it. Period. OK, let’s mix it up a bit ethically. What if a guy from a local deli was in the room at the time, delivering sandwiches. He overheard the president and tweeted it. Right or wrong? To me, that’s more fair game. He made no promise of being off the record. Word to the president: Don’t call people jackasses even off the record.

• The erroneous tweet: About a year ago, Mathew Ingram, communities editors for the Toronto Globe and Mail, tweeted after seeing a report on CNN’s iReport “citizen journalism” portal about Steve Jobs having a heart attack. He noted there were reports of a heart attack, but they were unverified.  A minute or two later, he noted where the tip came from, that someone on Digg saw the report on the news, and that the report could be from a troll. He caught fire from some who argued as a journalist Ingram should have made sure the report was true before he passed it on. In the end, it turned out that Jobs had not had a heart attack.

Right or wrong? Well, first, in the interest of transparency, let me disclose that Ingram and I both blog for Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab. While I’ve never meet him personally, we’ve corresponded a bit through Twitter. He also wrote a blog post a while back defending a controversial post I wrote about journalistic rules you can break on your blog. I tell you this because I believe in transparency. I don’t think all this clouds my judgment of Ingram, but you might. So here is: all on the table.

With that said, I don’t think he was wrong to tweet what would clearly be a very newsworthy tweet. I’m not saying that newsworthiness outweighs accuracy. Not at all. But Ingram, I believe, wouldn’t have tweeted something he knew to be false. He was just passing on news that many people would interest many and pointing out that it might not be true. If I had read his tweet, it would have spurred me to find out more, not lulled me into believing something based only on a tweet.

Some argued he should have verified the tweet before passing it on. Perhaps. Verification is always good. But one of the beauties of social media is its fluidity. It would be impossible for all of the millions of people on Twitter to verify every tweet before passing it on. Twitter isn’t a news medium. I think there’s an expectation that Twitter is the start of a conversation to prompt people to find out more, not the be all and end all.

With all that said, Ingram acknowledged on his blog that he’s likely do things differently. Perhaps. But Twitter only works an an information conduit if people aren’t afraid of tweeting. We’ll all make mistakes. Just last week, I tweeted something that look legit and turned out to be spam. Mea Culpa. That’s not unethical. That’s human.

• This is your brain on Facebook: A doctor in training posted a picture of a patient’s brain on Facebook, prompting a probe by Upstate Medical University, which wasn’t happy with the posting. The brain wasn’t labeled, so no one could really tell whose brain it was, except, of course the doc in training.  But some of the doc in training’s friends posted comments beside the picture that, perhaps, the owner of the brain might find, eh, unseemly:  “Do you feel like Hannibal Lector sometimes?” “Love a good BRAIN in the early morning!!” “Should that be served with a white or red wine????”

Right or wrong? My take is this was wrong, very wrong. Why? Doctors get to see us in our most vulnerable states (few things are more vulnerable than having your brain exposed), so they have even a greater obligation to protect that vulnerability. If it were me, I wouldn’t like my brain being discussed this way. And I wouldn’t want my doctor discussing any part of my body on his or her Facebook page.

But, you couldn’t tell whose brain it was, so why does it matter? To me it does. Some might say, “Lighten up; it’s funny.” I acknowledge that doctors probably need to use some gallows humor to get through the day, similarly to how cops and police reporters handle the job with humor. That’s fine. But don’t go public. Joking with a colleague is one thing. Doing it on a Facebook, very public space, the town square of our era so to speak, is different. (Yes, I know that only the doc’s Facebook friends could see the picture. But the thing is with the Web is you can’t trust that. If people can hack my credit card number off the Web, I’m guessing someone (not me) has the know-how to hack into Facebook.)

• The pulled blog post:  The Globe and Mail’s book editor attended a search-engine optimization seminar at the newspaper and then blogged critically on the newspaper’s Web site about the worshop. According to Ingram’s explanation, the books editor felt the workshop stressed too much that online headlines should be understandable to search engines, rather than people. Some senior editors at the Globe took umbrage at the post, and it was pulled. Ingram urged that he explain to readers why the post was taken down, especially considering some people had already seen the post, and at least one blog had linked to it.

Right or wrong? Well, to me, I think it was vital that the newspaper explain why it took down the post, even if no one had seen the post. The days of the detached news staff that knows better than the readers are over. So I’m glad, the newspaper explained it’s reasoning, which was the rant wasn’t particularly suitable for a books blog. I think journalists have an ethical obligation in today’s world to be transparent. To explain what they do and why they do it. Actually, I think this has always been the case, but the Web forces more transparency. (In the old days, if the books editors ranted in a print column, editors would spike it before anyone outside the newsroom would know.)

Transparency becomes an ethical issue because being transparent engenders trust in the same way that concealing things engenders suspicion. Ingram writes that he “argued that the trust of our readers was also a key part of our brand, and that we had to do everything we could to maintain it. That, I think, is the fundamental purpose of being open and honest in the first place. Trust, as Craig Newmark has said, is ‘the new black.’ ” I agree.

What do you think? Where do you draw the ethical line.

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More than a year ago, Brian Stelter had a story in The New York Times about how the social media generation takes it upon themselves to pass on the news they feel is worthwhile. The story contained a seminal quote from an unidentified college student that has become iconic of the new journalism evolving before our eyes. He said: “If the news is that important, it will find me.”

The line meant many things to many people. BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis and the Globe and Mail’s Mathew Ingram, a colleague here at Nieman, both wrote about it at the time.

That single line seemed to capture what is changing in journalism. The old model of sender (news organization) to receiver (audience) was eroding. With the interactive Web, people could be senders and receivers. News organizations could also be both. The lines were blurry and crossed. And if you wanted to capture those illusive young readers you needed to get that.

So why am I bringing all this up now, more than 18 months after the pivotal story — a lifetime in the Web world?

Read the rest of the post at the Nieman Journalism Lab.

Here are some short-takes of interesting stuff about journalism and newspapers that I found around the blogosphere:

Social media rules: The buzz over how news organizations should use (or not use) social media surfaced last spring and then died down again only to come back with a vengeance in recent weeks. The blather gained more steam when a Washington Post editor closed his Twitter account after he feared his tweets violated his newspaper’s new social media policy.

My take: Puleeeze! Why is it that journalists don’t think they can manage to be both human and good at their jobs as so many people in other fields can be. The Globe and Mail’s Mathew Ingram sums up the whole debate over social media rules well. Lehigh University J-prof Jeremy Littau offers some insight as well. And here is a list of how 82 companies handle the social media dilemma.

Five sentences to outlaw: Alison Gow at Headlines and Deadlines has a truly great post about five sentences that should be outlawed in newsrooms. The best (or worst?) takeaway is number 4: “It’s only the Web site” as in, “Who cares about posting the news on the Web first or creating an interactive chat or filming a video, it’s only the Web site.” Also some interesting fodder in the comments. Her post reminds me of mine from a while back, comparing old journalism to new journalism. Let’s move onto the news, please!

People pay for what has value: The Washington Post had a story recently about Jerry Capeci’s Gang Land Web site. Capeci wrote the Gang Land column for years, first for the New York Daily News and later the New York Sun. He put the column online and eventually left the paper. Last year, he decided to start charging a $5 subscription fee for his online column, and he’s making enough, the Post articles says, to make a living. I think this example raises two points relevant to online journalism: 

• One: As much as I’m against a paid-subscription model for online news in general, I think it can work in niche markets like this. People are willing to pay for something they believe has value.
• Two: Capeci wouldn’t reveal to the Post how much he makes, but even with subscriptions, it appears to be only enough to support one person (or one family). So news organizations: Beware, of being lulled into thinking online subscriptions will solve your problems. They won’t. Online subscriptions would never make enough to make up for the lost ad revenue, just as print subscriptions were only a portion of your revenue.

Twitter ads: The Austin American Statesman recently launched its first Twitter ads, according to a report in Editor & Publisher. The Statesman is selling Twitter ads on two of its 50 Twitter accounts, Statesman (13,843 followers) and Austin 360(10,098 followers). The ads are labeled as such and most offer a coupon or discount offer. Will this work? Who know. I think it has potential, especially because the Statesman has obviously put effort into boosting it’s Twitter followers. Niche ideas like this are the future, not closing your eyes and hoping the Internet and recession were just a bad dream. News organization may have to make money through multiple small projects like this, rather than the big honking print ads of days gone by.

I applaud the Statesman for trying this. Sitting around and say, “Oh, that won’t work” solves nothing. And if it fails, so what. Let’s all learn from it and improve next time. Trying things and then learning from the mistakes does. We need more of that in the journalism biz. As Thomas Edison said: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.”  So, Bravo, Statesman!

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Time for some short-takes, thoughtful ideas from across the blogosphere:

Media companies of the future: Chris Brogan, a new media marketing consultant, came up with his idea of what the next media company would look like, starting from scratch. I like his ideas, especially:

• Everything is modular and linkable. Everything is fluid. Meaning, if I want the publication to be a business periodical, then I don’t want to have to read a piece about sports. (Similar to my hyperinterest idea.)
• Curators and editors rule, and creators aren’t necessarily on staff.
• Paper isn’t dead: it’s on demand.
• Collaboration rules. Why should I pick the next cover? Why should my picture of the car crash be the best?

Be sure to read his whole list as well as Globe and Mail communities editor Mathew Ingram’s take on Brogan’s ideas. (And kudos to Ingram for tipping me off to Brogan’s lsit.)

How to save newspapers: MediaShift Executive Editor Mark Glaser offers 10 steps to saving newspapers on the Knight Foundation-funded blog. It’s a list worth reading. His best points, in my opinion:

• Create a bottom-up organization where innovation is encouraged and rewarded at the edges. Use good ideas from anyone.
• Replace circulation, printing, print production staff with tech, SEO, community managers.
• Find out what the community wants in real face-to-face meetings, not focus groups. Then do what they want.
• Produce mapping and database projects. Employ or train hacker-journalists

Social media rules: More on the continuing saga of news organizations coming up with rules that suck all the social out of social media. (If you’re late to this topic, get up to speed on The New York Times’ and The Wall Street Journal’s ill-advised social media policies.) The latest culprit is Bloomberg News’ policy, which forbids staffers from communicating on social media about any topic covered by Bloomberg News, according to Gawker. Patrick Thornton at Beat Blogging offers some commentary and links to a better approach for journalists using social media.

Social media is just conversation: Social media won’t save journalism; it’s just a tool to help journalists connect with readers. But it’s also not such a mystery. It’s really just a virtual version of what normal human beings have been doing for centuries — talking to each other, getting to know one another, sharing ideas.  Dave Fleet, a marketing, communications professional, explains this well in his post, “There’s Nothing Magical About Social Media Principles.” He’s not writing for journalists, but I think his message has much for journalists who are over-thinking social media, fearing it or seeing it as complicated or cumbersome. His best takeaways: target your audience, tailor your approach and remember, you rise and fall on relationships.

Time for another Short Takes:  Five articles worth reading that relate to journalism as it transforms.

Are staff cuts good news? That’s the provocative question Mathew Ingram asks at the Nieman Journalism Lab. This is the kind of post that can’t help but raise emotions. Pretty much anyone in journalism today knows someone who has lost a job recently, and it stinks. But I get that Ingram isn’t saying layoffs themselves are good. His point: Is the crisis in journalism forcing newspapers to change more than rapidly than they might otherwise. On that, I think he may be onto something. Would newspapers change without the crisis? Well, many didn’t.

Don’t stop the presses: Alan D. Mutter at Reflections of a Newsosaur says newspapers need to keep printing rather than go totally online if they want to stay in business: “The only ink-on-paper newspapers that can afford to attempt digital-only publishing are the ones that are irreversibly losing money.” He is responding in part to a December post by Jeff Jarvis at Buzz Machine that asserts the Los Angeles Times could go totally digital and still support its staff, with what he calls “cutbacks aplenty.” Both are smart reads.

Multimedia newsroom: So what would a truly digital newsroom look like? Jackie Hai’s Convergence Commons gives a glimpse by describing a college version of a Web-only news operation. She offers a great list of what the journalists of today (and tomorrow) will need to know how to do, including social networking, blogging and digital photojournalism.

Guest posting: Josh Klein, of Web Strategy, has a guest post on ProBlogger that aptly points out the value of guest posting on other people’s blogs. I’m a huge proponent of guest posting. And this posts tells you step by step how to do it. It’s worth a read for any journalist blogger who is trying to move into the new era.

Journalists as curators: I’ve heard that term a lot, but Mindy McAdams at Teaching Online Journalism really crystallizes what it means in a post from December. She compares the job to a museum curator and notes it involves, organizing, expertise, providing context, and updating. My favorite line: “It’s not important that each visitor stops at each display and reads each placard. Visitors can choose their own pace and their own level of intake.” True.

– Gina