WASHINGTON, D.C. —
Northeast Asia correspondent Steve Herman doesn’t do glib very well.
If you ask about his recent invitation to speak at an academic conference organized by Harvard, or the mentions he gets in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or on NBC, he’ll tell you, “There’s no greater honor in journalism than being acknowledged by one's peers.”
Much of the recognition is due to Herman's boundless activity on Twitter, where he routinely scoops major wire services on breaking news. Day-in and day-out he gushes tweet after breaking news tweet on North Korea or whatever else is happening in his patch.
Herman says, “In the Internet era there is no traditional news cycle, it's instantaneous and never-ending. And on Twitter, where unreliable reports or speculation can be spread globally in seconds, I feel compelled as a journalist to immediately transmit whatever we witness and can confirm.”
Translation: His Twitter account is like a firehose. He has been known to post more than 100 tweets in a 24-hour period. Retweets are a bonus.
On March 29, Mashable.com listed @W7VOA, Herman’s handle, as one of 10 Twitter accounts to follow for North Korean news. That article was in turn shared hundreds and hundreds of times, proving that 140 characters can have a lot of impact, something Herman’s 27,000 Twitter followers probably already knew.
If you ask about his recent invitation to speak at an academic conference organized by Harvard, or the mentions he gets in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or on NBC, he’ll tell you, “There’s no greater honor in journalism than being acknowledged by one's peers.”
Much of the recognition is due to Herman's boundless activity on Twitter, where he routinely scoops major wire services on breaking news. Day-in and day-out he gushes tweet after breaking news tweet on North Korea or whatever else is happening in his patch.
Herman says, “In the Internet era there is no traditional news cycle, it's instantaneous and never-ending. And on Twitter, where unreliable reports or speculation can be spread globally in seconds, I feel compelled as a journalist to immediately transmit whatever we witness and can confirm.”
Translation: His Twitter account is like a firehose. He has been known to post more than 100 tweets in a 24-hour period. Retweets are a bonus.
On March 29, Mashable.com listed @W7VOA, Herman’s handle, as one of 10 Twitter accounts to follow for North Korean news. That article was in turn shared hundreds and hundreds of times, proving that 140 characters can have a lot of impact, something Herman’s 27,000 Twitter followers probably already knew.
