dmerkow wrote >>
I'm not sure what I think about newspaper reporters and editors on Twitter. I follow many of them at the Dispatch and at the Enquirer. I don't really want my reporters to be about their personalities which is obviously social media places in the foreground. I'd probably just have a news feed on twitter and then have columnists/digital media specialists to interface between the reporters and the social media world.
I agree with that to a point. I wouldn't expect a reporter only working on day-to-day/breaking news to be socially active online (in a professional capacity), but good features, reviews, investigative pieces, and columns are usually at least partially driven by the writer's personality. I feel like both the old and new media folks are creating this artificial divide between sources of real news and people with personalities. There have always been distinctive personalities in newspapers, but that doesn't mean that the news reporting itself is any less accurate or objective.
The thing is, I don't have any interest in following a Twitter account that's only a news feed, and I rarely have any interest in following one that's obviously staffed by a specialist (although I have seen that done well on occasion). Rather than push all of their reporters onto Twitter, I think that The Dispatch (and its readers) would be best served by encouraging just a handful of writers (or even interns) to be active online. Let them be somewhat personal and engaging, and I'm fairly sure you will draw more people to the content than a standard news feed would.
In a lot of ways, Twitter serves as a form of advertising/marketing that also provides value to the reader. Give me something interesting to read in your Twitter feed (I'm a big fan of behind the scenes bits, but miscellaneous observations and extended coverage of an ongoing story are good too) and I'll be much more likely to want to check out your newspaper stories. If you just present me with a news feed, then I'm only likely to read the stories that I would read otherwise.
I usually cringe at the whole "people want to be marketed to" thing, I make an exception when it comes to news type stuff. If you have an interesting story or important story, I want to know about it. I've been on The Dispatch's website at least 20 times since I stated reading CU, which is about 18 more times than I visited it before hand. A few good Twitter feeds would probably get me to check it out at least a few more times each week. The Dispatch isn't getting much ad money from that, but they are getting more and more chances to impress me with their writing. I can get headlines anywhere, but if the writing becomes important enough to me, then I could easily see myself paying for it without even being required to; which is exactly what's worked for Public Radio.
And I do think that something similar to the Public Radio model is where the newspapers will wind up. I doubt that it would involve any direct public funding, but that's not a big part of NPR or PRI's budgets either. I do think that there will be a combination of donations, subscriptions (physical and ebook/reader), and underwriting and/or advertising. I look forward to one day receiving my Columbus Dispatch tote bag.
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