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What's The Hashtag? Did Neil P. Munro of The Daily Caller, the conservative blog, challenge my integrity as a journalist because he does not use Twitter and understand how it works? Perhaps that's what happened here. Can't think of any other reason -- except to take a cheap shot, as the Washington Post reported. As the social media reporter at The New York Times, I use hashtags to set up streams on Tweetdeck to follow the conversation on important news events. After President Obama asked people to use Twitter to contact lawmakers about the debt ceiling on Friday, I needed to find out what hashtag to follow. I first asked my followers on Twitter if they knew. Then, on Twitter, I asked two White House aides if they could tell me. I assumed reporters in the White House pressroom were already informed. For me, Twitter is my pressroom. So, here's my three tweets. As you can see, I did not suggest or advise the White House as The Daily Caller claimed. One of the WH aides responded within minutes to my question. You will also see that I did not suggest #compromise as the hashtag, as some have suggested. I was simply doing my job as a reporter, asking a followup question after the POTUS speech. What's worse, is that his misleading story was picked up by Yahoo News, Drudge, Andrew Malcolm at the LA Times, FoxNews and others. Mr. Munro's uninformed knowledge of Twitter not only questioned my integrity but unleashed a torrent of ugly attacks from right-wing and conservative Twitter users (including socks and operatives) who accused me of all sorts of things. I have been a journalist for 30 years. Taking abuse comes with the job. But, as a journalist, I am disappointed Yahoo News picked it up without even looking at my two tweets. And that Andrew Malcolm of the LA Times picked up the story without picking up the phone or apparently looking at the tweets in question. Reporters make mistakes all the time. I know that I do. Just last week. But we correct them. I didn't know Erik Wemple from the Washington Post before Friday. I was lucky that a real reporter was watching and got the story right. Here's a link http://wapo.st/mZHoPR -- So, here's my first tweet from Friday morning, shortly after President Obama spoke, and then my tweets to WH aides. @macon44 works as the WH New Media Director. @jesseclee44 works in the press office.
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