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Washington. In a sign of the times, The New York Times named its first “social media” editor this week.

Jennifer Preston, a 25-year veteran of New York newspapers, announced her appointment, appropriately, on her Twitter feed.

“Hi, I’m the NYT’s new social media editor,” she wrote. “More details later.”

Preston used the remainder of her 140-character allotment to ask: “How should ‘nytimes’ be using Twitter?”

According to a Times internal memo obtained by Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab, Preston’s new duties will include “expanding the use of social media networks and publishing platforms to improve New York Times journalism and deliver it to readers.

“An awful lot of people are finding our work not by coming to our home page or looking at our newspaper but through alerts and recommendations from their friends and colleagues,” the Times’ memo said.

“So we ought to learn how to reach those people effectively and serve them well.

“Jennifer will work closely with editors, reporters, bloggers and others to use social tools to find sources, track trends and break news as well as to gather it,” it said.

“She will help us get comfortable with the techniques, share best practices and guide us on how to more effectively engage a larger share of the audience on sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Digg and beyond.”

Like other US newspapers, The New York Times has struggled with a steep drop in print advertising revenue, declining circulation and readers’ use of free news online.


Agence France-Presse