Journalists are talking about #wjchat

Chats on the microblogging site Twitter aren’t new, but a chat that debuted last week has journalists buzzing.

#Wjchat, a chat that focuses on web journalism, started Feb. 10 with one main question — “What is the job of a web journalist and what skills do you need?”

More than 100 people have tweeted the hashtag around 900 times since its start last Wednesday. Journalists  are taking notice of this chat that lets them share ideas of collaboration in what can be a challenging time in journalism. J-school student Ethan Klapper blogged about it here.

It is modeled after #journchat, a Monday night Twitter chat that happens between journalists and public relations professionals.

Actually, the co-creators of #wjchat started talking during #journchat about the need for a discussion that focused on web journalism. They spent a night collaborating and came up with the idea of #wjchat, @kimbui told me in an email.

She wrote:

We’re hoping to talk about the challenges of being a web journalist in a changing industry. We all have different titles and different backgrounds, but we all believe firmly that we need to evolve as journalists. We’re hoping to tackle ethics, tech topics, content, and business models – all things that are up in the air at times.

#Wjchat runs every Wednesday from 8 to 10 p.m. EST. I participated last week and will try to do so whenever I can. I have a previous commitment this week, but I’ll be checking the chat’s sweet archive system.

This week’s chat moderator is Greg Linch of Publish2. He’ll focus on the relationship between journalists and coders. I did a quick Q & A with him. Look for that post in a few.