Digiday | Fast Company
Don’t let the two screens running TweetDeck, the 40 Reuters accounts he oversees, or his ability to root out cringe-inducing screenshots fool you: Reuters social media editor Anthony De Rosa, writes Saya Weissman in a profile, is no mere Twitter monkey.
“Social media is where everyone gets their news now,” he says. “Honestly, as years go by, all editors, as many already are, will be using it as a place to gather information just like anywhere else. I simply focus much of my attention on this medium, but I see it as nothing particularly novel as time goes by.”
For all this multiplatforming, De Rosa’s focused on growing audience, not traffic: “I think traffic is probably one of the least important metrics of what we’re gaining from social media.”
David D. Burstein writes about how Gabriel Dance, the Guardian’s interactive editor, went from computer science to journalism. He’s trying to square the paper’s populist credo with its digital presence:
“The Guardian is open about their agenda, which is representing the common man,” says Dance, “As a result the interactive projects we do aim to represent the underrepresented.” When The Guardian runs a long in-depth article, on any subject [or] issue, they can’t review the basics for readers who may not be up to speed. In Dance’s estimation this means that they are leaving behind some of the very people The Guardian aims to serve.
So: Videos. Interactive graphics. This thing of beauty. Guardian U.S. editor-in-chief Janine Gibson has Dance at all editorial meetings: “Why would you just have the people who write the words at the meeting?” How’s that go over with the others?
Dance acknowledges that although some do not view his work as “real journalism,” that will change. “When photojournalism first began, people debated whether or not photojournalists were real journalists. Today no one would say that photojournalists aren’t journalists, it’s just that they practice their trade with a camera. The only thing I care about is journalism. I just do it through TextMate and JavaScript.”
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