Recently, our newsroom was eligible for various Poynter Institute training that mostly served as a updated road map to digital and social media tools in this new journalism age.
Most of it was really useful. But there was one that blew my mind, not only regarding the presenter (OK, look. You don’t ever use the “word” “phenom” when you are leading a workshop. Just NO.), but the tool itself. I’ve heard of Snapchat, of course, and based on what I knew, had surmised this was useless to me. So your content gets wiped after 24 hours and there’s no way to track who saw it, you say?
Unfortunately, that course did nothing to change my mind. Not much, anyway. One thing that gave me pause was that the Washington Post uses Snapchat. Then how bad can it be, right?
So I decided to try it. Of course, when I find the app in the Google store on my phone it says it’s for teens. I pretended not to notice and downloaded it anyway. Let’s be clear. I am attempting Snapchat to confirm its uselessness, but I am open to any evidence suggesting otherwise. Team Snapchat, you have 30 days to prove your worth to naffisnaps (my handle). Good luck to you, sirs!