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Shel Holtz
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Newspaper goes Twitter

A local newspaper has integrated Twitter into its news offerings, according to an article today in Journalism.co.uk. The Nashua Telegraph (New Hampshire, USA) has created a section of its website for breaking news; the news items are fed directly to a Telegraph Twitter stream with links (TinyURLs, of course) to a mobile version of the newspaper’s website.

A current look at the newspaper’s tweets shows weather information (including school and airport information), along with news about a local murder trial and other information that could be important to local residents:

Nashua Telegraph

Damon Kiesow, the managing editor of the paper’s online edition, draws a distinction between the Twitter stream and the regular news updates to which people can subscribe, a standard feature of most online newspapers:

The breaking news feed is specifically designed for mobile phones: it’s very selective, so you’re not going to get 50 updates a day, and it’s news that’s important regardless of where you are.

According to the article, Kiesow sees Twitter as the first layer of information for a reporter covering a developing story; as the story builds, it can be developed into incremently longer pieces for SMS and full-length publication articles.

As long as newspapers continue offering new distribution methods for their content consistent with the way people want to get and consume their news, they should do just fine. The Telegraph is certainly an example of the kind of experimentation newspapers should consider.

12/14/07 | 3 Comments | Newspaper goes Twitter

Comments

  • 1.Aw, I grew up in Nashua! This is great. I personally don't subscribe to any news Tweets, because I try to set aside part of the day to actually peruse my news websites....But there's definite value here. I may have to follow the good old Telegraph for nostalgia's sake.

    Sarah Wurrey | December 2007

  • 2.CBC News online has been twittering updates for some time now. It's VERY cool.

    Bob LeDrew | December 2007 | Ottawa, Canada (somewhere under a foot or so of sn

  • 3.Here's another newspaper jumping on the bandwagon. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has just created a "Hwy 40 Twitter Team" to provide updates on the first day of the Highway 40 (major St. Louis transportation artery) reconstruction shutdown. (One of my colleagues, Susan Iskiwitch, is on the team and will be Twittering as SusanIskoff40.)

    If you're driving through St. Louis on Jan. 2, I'd suggest 1)going through Iowa, because it's going to be absolute chaos on St. Louis highways that day, or 2)checking out the Twitterings of the poor souls caught in construction purgatory!

    Mistie Thompson | December 2007 | St. Louis

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