Hashtag journalism

[Commentary] Journalists have always covered “trending” topics. But in the pre-Twitter era, the trends weren’t algorithmically ranked.

As activists have clamored to create and promote hashtags to draw attention to their issues -- so-called “hashtag activism” -- journalists have had to figure out when a Twitter trend merits news coverage. Or, in some cases, whether the hashtag is news in and of itself. Increasingly, they decide that it is. Slate described hashtag activism as a way “to divert public attention to new subjects.” And indeed, many of the news stories that have been subject to the efforts of hashtag activists have succeeded in redirecting the attention of both the public and reporters toward a previously more obscure angle. In some ways, journalists should be grateful for hashtag activism.

The trending hashtag is a way to figure out what the public wants to discuss and learn more about -- with the added bonus that when journalists add more reporting and perspective to the conversation, their work gets duly hashtagged and receives an added boost. But in other ways, it’s just white noise. While hashtag activism is a good way to introduce a story or perspective into the mainstream news cycle, it doesn’t typically lead to sustained coverage of that story. Plus, Twitter itself is an incomplete picture of the public’s interests: As of 2013, only 18 percent of online adults were using it, but 58 percent of journalists were.

But for activists who want to demand journalists’ attention en masse, Twitter is far and away the best forum today.