I’ve done this kind of intelligence gathering a long time ago in the financial newsagency arena, using mIRC as the mechanism, but within the firewall. It was highly unusual then, and I suspect still so now, because journalists don’t seem so good at sharing. The subjects for interview would be central banking types. Reporters in the global network would be tapped for input, offering different technical or market perspectives. This could even be done with doorstep interviews to produce realtime feedback between subject and audience. The interviewer could look way smarter this way too, so you build credibility with who you are talking to.

The problem with working on your own is what is known as the availability error/heuristic. Tapping a wider faculty could unfortunately reinforce that, unless you maintain diversity in your network. Of course if your editor suffers from availability error, you’re screwed.

Better go off and twitter now.