“People taking pictures of their food is not news!” said social media guru Steve Ahern at a Mobile Journalism masterclass for journalists, held at Singapore Media Academy.

According to one participant, Steve mentioned the word “content” 14 thousand times during the course, emphasizing that news reporters using social media still need to think professionally about what they write on their accounts.

Participants of the course concluded that on average, Singaporeans post about three pictures of their meals per day, what with the city being a food paradise.

“Is tweeting about a police press conference that has yet to begin considered as acceptable news content?”  participant Lynne Chee asked.

Steve answered, “would your news bulletin run a story saying a press conference is on, or would you wait until you have actual information from that conference before airing the story?” Approach professional social media in the same way.

Another masterclass participant, Favian, said one of the most interesting points from the course was, how we can leverage on social trends to develop content that our readers would want to consume.

Here is some food for thought from the course:

• Vimeo is a useful tool for filing videos from the field
• Wavepad is a useful audio editing app for your smart phone

• The old fashioned news cycle is now outdated by the speed of social media
• Old fashioned ratings systems need to be improved to track new audience consumption habits

• Media newsrooms need to upgrade their workflow practices to become more efficient

Report filed by Patwant Singh….that’s all for now I’m off for lunch. Check my facebook page to see what I had for lunch (but don’t tell Steve).

During the lunch break, we used smartphone apps to capture and file this report on Singapore transport, capturing, editing, compiling and filing the test report by using apps and techniques learnt in the course.