Archive for December 7th, 2008

I told you that I had more than one Twitterer I was planning to feature, and now I’ve got the post ready.  For basic information on Twitter, visit the original Twitter post on Richie Escovedo.

Bio: Eva-Marie Ayala is a Star-Telegram staff reporter covering the regional education beat. She is followed by over 200 other twitterers.

Blog: She manages the Fort Worth Star Telegram Extra Credit Blog, which covers many topics in regional education. The latest story tells which district offers the highest starting teacher salaries.

Twitter Handle: she can be found on Twitter at @fwstayala.

Interview: Eva-Marie answered a few questions about using Twitter:

Who or what got you started on Twitter, and why? Many journalists have experimented with and talked about Twitter a lot lately. I didn’t really jump in until this summer after talking about it with @Vedo and @Morate, who both use Twitter very effectively. At first I thought it would just be something to drive traffic back to www.star-telegram.com. And it is great for that by posting links to stories and blog posts, but I get so much more out of it. You can find people you wouldn’t otherwise know about (local and national) and better develop relationships with them in a very informal way. That helps me, as a reporter, to know who our community is and what they are concerned about, whether they are local or in education circles. I also get to tweet out info on breaking news, like I did covering Hurricane Ike, as things happen or maybe just an interesting side note that wouldn’t make it into the story itself. The community also gets to know more about who I am rather than just seeing me as some abstract reporter person.

How did you come up with your Twitter handle? I wanted a way for people to identify me (ayala) as a reporter with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (fwst).

What twitter applications do you use? I use Twitterfeed to automatically tweet out Extra Credit posts, and I have the Twitter app for my Blackberry. I use Twitterlocal and Twellow to try and find more local folks to follow who are parents, teachers, college students, education groups or people connected to education in some way. I used Twittervotereport during the election to see if any problems were being reported in Texas. I keep meaning to use something like Tweetdeck or Thwirl, but I haven’t gotten that far yet.

Are you on other social networks? I do use Facebook quite a bit. It is mostly to keep in touch with work-related colleagues, but I also use it to post links back to Extra Credit and sometimes to find area students for stories, like college students who might be voting for the first time.

And Finally: Four Good Reasons to Follow @fwstayala

1. You’ll be up to speed on education news in the region.

2. Ecliectic topics run all the way from Oscar de la Hoya to local club scene, including cover charges.

3. Interesting repartee and humor between her, @vedo and @morate, some of which involves jokes dating bach to childhood.

4. You can finally tell people you “know” a Star-Telegram reporter.