12 Digital Tools for Journalists – A share from the SPJ Convention

Megan Fromm, JEA Professional Support Director, attended the Society of Professional Journalist’s Excellence in Journalism Convention a few weeks ago and came back with a great list of digital tools. She attended a presentation led by representatives from the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism where they shared the following digital tools for journalists. It’s a great list and definitely worth clicking through the links to find out more about each of the items.

1. Research: Internet public library—ask a librarian and find data
2. Notetaking: Dragon Dictation—converts phone into a recorder, dictates messages, as you dictate, words are turned into text that you can email
3. Curated social media: Banjo–curates social media and news feeds into one place
4. Newsgathering: Storycheck—mobile app for androids—good for young reporters and walks through stories to see what’s missing, etc. story reference list, questions you might ask, resources, etc.
5. Monitoring: HootSuite–social media dashboard
6. Audio editing: SoundCloud and TwistedWave audio editor ($10)
7. Crowdsourcing: Google forms (found in the Google drive. Use this for easy surveys and forms)
8. Photo/video: Procam 8 for iOS. $3.99 on iTunes. Seamless movement from still to video
9. Datamining: Data.gov
10. Video editing: Videolicious—Make easy short videos with your phone. There’s a Poynter demo, too
11. Mapping: Mapalist—Create and manage customized Google lists
12. Twitter— Tweet Archivist is a fee service that archives tweets/provides analytics