Tweet!

Look familiar to you?

If not, it should. Twitter.com is the latest site when it comes to news dissemination, but surprisingly it isn't run by a news organization.

It's run through you.

I first heard about twitter at an online journalism conference last spring. Considering the work I do as Managing Editor for Online at The Daily Illini and my ongoing interest in new media, I signed up for the site.

And then I didn't log in for months.

At first it seemed like a glorified Facebook update. Since I already had a Facebook profile, I wasn't too sure what to make of twitter.

That was until this past week. Many news organizations, such as The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times and locally The News-Gazette use twitter to connect with a wide audience. They do so by updating their status with the latest headlines about news, weather, traffic, etc.

For any student interested in the news, this is the latest place to go. It's a social networking Web site similar to Facebook that in a clean and simple format that allows you to digest your favorite outlet's articles.

Fancy yourself a news junky? Then this is your latest high.

Get involved

I didn't think this image would look so small, but here's a peak at what St. Louis Post-Dispatch is doing to generate user interest. They've created a separate Web site that they link to in many instances called mystltoday. http://my.stltoday.com/community/app/nf/vistafs.aspx

What this Web site does is it encourages community participation in journalism. It allows people to share the stories of how the news has impacted their life, tailoring it to their specific needs, wants and desires.

In my opinion the best thing about this is that it breaks down the barriers between journalists and the community they serve. Journalists can be viewed as higher players in the game of information, simply gathering and preaching news as we see hit. Yet the media outreach created through user submitted content allows readers to become part of the news, a move that could hopefully generate some revenue and more importantly, more interest in a business that according to gruesome headlines has taken a few blows.

Perhaps the end is near

Odd as it might be, the same news organization that brought you the trashy slideshow of celebrity mug shots is now heralding in a temporary end to tabloid journalism.

The Chicago Tribune's logic: celebrities are getting boring.

Apparently we're past the mayhem of Brajolina and Bennifer. May those days rest in peace.

Here's a link to that article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-celebrity-lull-1117nov17,0,6940222.story

Typically I'm a cynic. Some consider it a negative quality, I consider it survival of the fittest. But in this case, I'd like to think that the American public has shed its fascination with celebrities. Perhaps images of war and suffering are actually getting the attention they deserve.

And right when I was thinking that, I scrolled down and saw a link to the slideshow of celeb mug shots I used as a guilty pleasure. Gotta love related content.