Then again as you’ve demonstrated with the Vancouver Sun’s poor example of a website, there’s probably not a lot of people in that newsroom who can create a hypertext link.

Using Twitter accounts simply as RSS feed syndicators are easy because the newspapers don’t need to have anyone actually monitoring these accounts. Just set it up and go.

With all the cuts to print newsrooms nowadays, news outlets see Twitter as just another way to get the news out to people, while also demonstrating they can be part of the “cool kids” using new media. It doesn’t hurt to experiment; how about putting a junior reporter or even an intern in charge of the account to interact with readers? Newspapers are slowly dying and those struggling to keep up will find themselves without an audience – both print and digital.

With RSS feeds, blogs, e-subscriptions… people will get your headline time & time again. If you have a rapport with the person/company, & then they update you with some news, it’ll register a lot more then previous 5-10 sources that gave you the same info.