Thursday, November 5, 2009

Interview with Craig Kanalley of Breaking Tweets

Photo: http://twitter.com/ckanal




Twenty-three-year-old Buffalo, New York native Craig Kanalley is best known as the brain behind the Twitter based news site Breaking Tweets. In addition, Kanalley is currently part of the journalism staff at DePaul University, teaching a new course called Digital Editing: From Breaking News to Tweets.

In terms of his academic background, after graduating from St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y., Kanalley received his Master's from DePaul in journalism, finishing with an impressive 3.95 GPA.

Despite his extremely busy schedule, I had the opportunity to speak with the online entrepreneur over the phone. During the interview, Kanalley spilled the beans and let me in on his latest venture, working as Traffic and Trends Editor for the Huffington Post. Kanalley also expressed his hopes for the future world of journalism.

Q: What's your typical day like? Are you online 24/7?

Kanalley: No, not 24/7, not all the time. A lot of it is on my iPhone, so I have Twitter and everything to navigate on there to figure out what's going on. For a typical day, when it's a major breaking story, we try to jump on it as quickly as we can and get it on the site.

Q: Where do you see Breaking Tweets in five years?

Kanalley: I hope it is its own website by then. But I mean, not just a website but like an independent news organization that's actually recognized as a business model. In a perfect world, that's my hope.

Q: Where do you see yourself in five years?

Kanalley: I don't really know because I see Breaking Tweets as like a side project really, not necessarily a full-time thing ever, I don't think. I'm just starting a job at the Huffington Post actually, and I'm going to see where that goes and maybe I'll stay with them.

Q: In order to be a good and successful online journalist, do you think getting a degree in journalism is required?

Kanalley: I don't think I'd say that, it depends. I think you could be a good journalist without having much education in  it. But it definitely helps because you got to know that stuff and if you don't, I think you can have problems in your organization.

Q: Do you agree that the world of journalism is a changing, and not a dying, business?

Kanalley: Yes, I definitely think it's a changing business, and not dying. But I think that not everybody, unfortunately, is going to survive the downturn. I think we are going to lose some more media outlets along the way.

Q: With your new Huffington Post job, what's going to happen with Breaking Tweets?

Kanalley: Yes, that's new. I just got offered a job with them and I accepted. It's a full-time job with them as Traffic and Trends Editor. So I'll be focusing a lot on breaking news stuff for them, SEO, and social media. In terms of Breaking Tweets, I plan to keep doing that. Like I said, as a side thing. I think it'll keep going, and hopefully my friends will keep doing it as well because I have a bunch of friends that work on it with me.

Q: If there is one, who would be Breaking Tweets' number one competitor?

Kanalley: I would say Breaking News on Twitter. It's @BreakingNews just because it's similar, what they do. But instead of rounding up tweets, they focus on literally breaking news stories, so they're probably the closest thing to our competitor.

Q: On your Web site, you say that you "take pride in being extremely detail-oriented", how do you apply that mindset to your work?

Kanalley: When I wrote that, I meant a strong interest in details and getting all the facts and having a natural curiosity in the world, and I think those are traits that can be helpful for a journalist, so I think that's one of the most important things. In terms of a rule in online journalism, you have to be on top of all the specifics and make sure you have all the research done and all the facts straight, of course.

Q: If you had the power to do so, what would you change about Twitter?

Kanalley: I wouldn't really change anything. I think one of the reasons it's so good is that it's so simple and I think one thing I would say is for them NOT to make too many changes when going forward. Just keep it really simple and stick to the basics.

Q: How do you feel about all the "copy cat" news sites that have been modeled after Breaking Tweets?

Kanalley: I think the key for an organization to succeed where there's competition like that is to establish yourself as a trusted source and a credible source. We have a little bit of an advantage because we were founded way before all these sites. So we've been doing it for so long; so we use that to our advantage, in terms of credibility.

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