Comments on: Rocky Mountain News: “It’s strange to cover your own funeral”

By: Is the death of newspapers inevitable? « Save the Media

Is the death of newspapers inevitable? « Save the Media — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 02:08:46 +0000

[...] the death of newspapers inevitable? Jump to Comments The sad end to the Rocky Mountain News last week has triggered a lot of soul searching among the journalistic community. What does it mean? Is the [...]

By: Gina Chen

Gina Chen — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:26:06 +0000

in the profession … you don’t twitter on the phone.

In any case, I agree that many of the increased followers of RMN likely were journalists. I know I started following the paper on the day it closed.

But that’s not really the point.

The point is that these tweets show the potential of a new tool that could be used for a million journalistic jobs that we haven’t even thought of yet.

Will Twitter save journalism? Of course, not. But what will save journalism is an open attitude toward change, innovation and understanding readers in a way newspapers just haven’t done before. I guess I think that is real journalism.

By: Zachary M. Seward

Zachary M. Seward — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:48:09 +0000

I’m sure someone once said the same thing about newswires.

By: In the profession

In the profession — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:30:45 +0000

Newsroom twittering is just the “talent” puffing themselves to feel more relevant and important. Get off your phone and do some real journalism.

I am saddened by the loss of jobs and feel for employees.

By: Zachary M. Seward

Zachary M. Seward — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:44:19 +0000

A fair point, Beth, but I think the Rocky's tweets are merely evidence of how realtime reporting can match the power of traditional narrative journalism. There's definitely a demand for tweeting newsrooms, though. @ColonelTribune has 6,278 followers. I'm sure many are journalists, but most are readers of The Chicago Tribune who want to connect with the newspaper on Twitter. —Zach

By: Beth

Beth — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:27:33 +0000

Twittering newsroom are journalist talking to themselves. Seriously, the 60 followers (that grew to 400 followers) all newspaper people. How much audience true audience growth is that?