As more newsrooms hire community engagers and social media producers, it is not far fetched that future newsrooms will be filled with personnel whose fulltime job is to keep track of the pulse of the community.

With Facebook, Twitter and other forms of communications becoming increasingly popular, newsroom managers are racing at breakneck speed to incorporate this new means of interacting with their communities.  Social media is opening a two-way dialogue between the citizens and the media, allowing the average man-on-the-street to become part of the news reporting team.

“The major problem facing newsrooms today is figuring out how to work with the community, not against it,” said Alfred Hermida, professor of integrated journalism at the University of British Columbia.  “Social platforms present journalists with an opportunity to create and develop their brand(s) based on the value they bring to the network.”  Hermida, in “The Future of Social Media in Journalism”, an on-line article, also said, “Social media by its very definition is a participatory medium.”

Social networking focus is now shifting toward individual interaction and not the institution. 

According to Susan Mernit, founder of Oakland Local in Oakland, CA., there is no longer a need for journalists to provide 90 percent of the daily coverage in communities. She also noted that her site is increasingly looking how to support two-way interaction and contributions from the public.

Michele McLellan, a consultant who works primarily with the Knight Foundation and the Knight Digital Center, said in  tweet to the @TBDCommunity, “Members of any community are the experts in what they are experiencing and seeing on given topics.”  She also added that journalists would be better suited by developing skills to fill the information gaps, offering broader perspective and context on the information and fostering conversation about it.   

“Digital is changing the structure of the news room,” said Robin J. Phillips, web managing editor for the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, based at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications. “Social media can be used as a tip sheet and we journalists must get comfortable and understand that.”

She noted that journalists will still have to check out the facts and cannot take social media and just use it in a story without confirming the truth behind the content.

“The newsroom will have to embrace social media as it is not going away,” Phillips said.  “Newsrooms need to fold social media into the news culture. The tools will change, but the newspaper must become part of the conversation, not just a broadcaster. Social media is getting people to invest in the newspaper much like a small-town community.”

Many newspapers, like The Arizona Republic, have established a social media department.  The Republic’s department is headed by Chad Graham.  Not only do his co-workers search for news-breaking tweets, they respond to tweets from readers and help build the newspaper’s brand.

The Republic’s social media department also shares tips and vets stories through emailing colleagues.  

“The channels go both ways between the news organization and the reader,” Phillips said.  “A major use of social media is to develop sidebar stories and to add color.”    

Journalists are now using social media to gain the trust of the readers by updating, commenting and clarifying the news through interaction. A computer monitor at the Republic could have three viewing screens, one for the newsroom as it relays information to other colleagues, one for general sent messages and one for incoming messages from citizens in the field.     

“The social media is giving voice to the voiceless,” Phillips said. 

Currently Twitter is the medium of choice between the readers and the media, as it supports a two-way interaction. Perhaps most important for journalists is the fact that it enables them to update readers with news in real-time.

While newspapers like The Republic have included new technologies to leverage and optimize journalism in new ways that resonate with readers, some feel threatened by it.     

Overlooked in the discussion of social media by some is the fact that newspapers that have been successful in social media are now developing their brand.

“Twitter can brand the newspaper,” Phillips said.