The real time web implies that online news will flow more and more through applications, not websites. The problem facing mainstream media is their dependence on traffic through their websites for advertising revenue.

The journalistic media on the other hand continue to try to erect walls that halt traffic flow through their websites, either by charging subscriptions (New York Newsday gets 35 subscribers after three months), by limiting access to their content by aggregators (Murdoch’s gambit with blocking Google from indexing Sky News content), or simply by not providing an RSS feed for syndication (Santa Barbara News Press and many other local publications).

Social media thrives on RSS to find, deliver and syndicate news from journalistic media, and it directs traffic back to the news source.  If the traditional news media continues to ignore social media sourced breaking news, they risk becoming irrelevant to their communities who demand this real time news. People will eventually find that real time news directly from their community via one of their social networks and news aggregation applications.

With the sudden closure of Denver’s Rocky Mountain News Friday and the publication of its epitaph video, the past week has been filled with speculation on the future of newspapers. David Cohn, of Spot.us, a collaborative funding source for journalist assignments, is chronicling topical articles on his Google Reader shared items. Recommended.

In sum, the future existence of newpapers must always return to the revenue model. The most radical being proposed is paradoxically a return to the old model of paid content. Walter Isaacson proposed the return of walled subscription services on February 5 in Time Magazine, and newspaper publishing company Hearst and Cablevision, owner of Newsday both just announced walled content initiatives.

The fifth estate’s laments focus on the value of their trade as monetizable, i.e. news is worth paying for. The problem with their argument is “free” news will always exist – through newspapers and journalists that won’t wall their content, through CNN, and via the bloggers and Twitterers who will distribute the free content. What else could a Newsday or SF Chronicle, or your local paper, add to the news that someone will pay for? Think about that.

The return of walled subscription services will put journalist value in a “put up or shut up” position that could threaten their entire value proposition. Duncan Riley dares newspapers to wall in content:

Why? because it will drive their readers to other sites, including blogs, and that’s good for business if you’re in the web publishing business.

It might also once and for all prove that the blogosphere doesn’t need newspapers as a primary source of news

Turning back the clock to the old world business model in which “we, the media, own the content” makes little sense. There’s a hint of disintermediation frustration behind the media’s stance. We know many citizen journalists already write about ideas and topics they know much better (through their life experience) than the beat reporter, and it remains to be seen what really will be called “news” in the future.

Twellow is the best application to find Twitterers grouped by occupation. I perused through the News category – noted a lot of freelancing journalists and some reporters, but no news producers or editors.

Twitter makes it easy for a community to tip the news media

News producers should understand that news sourcing has become social because anybody can now feed them story ideas. Moreover, news producers should FOLLOW others so their potential citizen news sources can DM (direct message) them with story ideas and breaking news that are best transmitted privately. News producers can provide journalistic value by positioning themselves as media hubs in their community.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA HIDES BEHIND THEIR CALL LETTERS AND BROADCASTS ONE WAY

Advice to mainstream media – don’t hide behind your call letters or mastheads on Twitter – use your real reporter and producer names like WUSA9. And don’t arrogantly just use Twitter blatantly as a one-way broadcast media- this is old media think and keeps your brand isolated from your constituency. Following others who you respect as news sources will expand the distribution network you will leverage as a media hub. And those you follow will be appreciative.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA STILL CALLING TWITTER UNRELIABLE NEWS SOURCING

Granted, individual Twitter sources are not trustworthy at face value. What makes citizen journalism credible is the aggregation of individual sources into a collective, accountable voice. This is what makes citizen review sites like Yelp more trustworthy than the Twitter-like pronouncements of a Zagat’s restaurant review; Yelp’s statistical samples are large enough to prove its results, and Zagats is a black box.

Citizen sources are much closer to breaking news events (as seen in Mumbai and Gaza), and the “reporting” or research / interpretation of the news can be performed by either mainstream media or citizen sources. Dave Winer makes the case that the social media does vet and report news (his diagram above).

It seems obvious that once mainstream media surrenders its position that only they can report news by sending out salaried news crews and cameras, real economies of scale (think free) of news sourcing happens. Mainstream media can then add quality (and value) by filtering interesting stories arising from a magnitude more citizen sources than they have now. Twitter is, in essence, a massive extension to their 800-”hotline”. Now, if the media would only listen.

KUDOS TO MAINSTREAM MEDIA WHO ARE SERIOUSLY EXPERIMENTING WITH TWITTER

Let’s congratulate a few news media companies and individuals that have put together a comprehensive Twitter presence.

Tori Blase, CNN – the only major news producer I see out there

Dave Courvoisier, KLAS TV anchor, Las Vegas – thanks for your sincere offers of help

WUSA9, Washington DC

Patrick O’Brien, WUSA Web Director – Patrick introduced me to the whole WUSA team on Twitter.

Peggy Fox, Anchor

Stephanie Wilson, News Producer

Angie Goff, Traffic Anchor

Lindsey Mastis, Digital Correspondent

Lesli Foster, Consumer Reporter

Kim Martucci, Meteorologist

Sara Walsh, Sports / Skins Uncensored

Andrew Nystrom, LA Times Social media and tech blogger – Andrew seems to be coordinating a massive effort to build media channels by category at the LA Times.

LATimesTweets lists all 59 LA Times Twitter feeds

Related articles:

The New Web 2.5 Opportunity: Create Media Hubs

The Future is LA Times.com, not LA Times the Paper

Slow Death of Traditional News Syndication

Breaking news is critical for making time sensitive purchase decisions – nobody should buy GM stock, purchase a home or car, or lock in an interest rate without checking what is happening in the markets and how it impacts their purchase decision.

How Breaking News Real Estate Sites Become a Mass Media Property

The new breaking news websites like Homescopes, a real estate site of blogging Realtors devoted to granularly chronicling the Northern California housing marketing in real time, is a far better resource for analyzing this local market than any journalist writing a weekly real estate column. Homescopes is planning to expand to having 100 real estate “journalists” covering this regional market. Once this happens, Homescopes becomes a bona fide source of professional real estate opinion, and can now leverage their collective knowledge base by teaming up with the traditional mass media for supplemental content delivery. Imagine Homescopes as a part of the San Francisco Chronicle coverage of the real estate market in the Bay Area… Homescopes’ agents benefit from exposure in a mass media publication that is akin to free advertising.

In addition, Homescopes will be able to leverage their portable social graph – readers can log into Homescopes through their Facebook account via Facebook Connect or via similar channels like Google Friend Connect. Like all social media plays, these various Homescopes social networks will build on the trust and credibility that develops among the membership.

Conclusion

Homescopes is singular in the landscape of independent real estate sites by providing breaking news cooperatively and in hyperlocal detail by its participating agents. No other real estate sites – Trulia, Inman News, Realtor.com – can provide this level of local detail in a news feed based format. Simple to build at little cost, all it takes are ringleaders who see the opportunity to replicate Homescopes in their markets.

Related articles:

Homescopes – providing breaking news for the Bay Area housing markets

Entrepreneurial Real Estate Marketing

Incorporate “Breaking News” into the Website and Make Them Compelling Reads

The Portable Social Graph

Tom’s Tech Blog decries Twitter as an unreliable news source, and therefore not a news source, receives backlash from prominent bloggers:

Yes, Twitter is a Source of Journalism – Mathew Ingram

I Can’t Believe Some People are still Saying Twitter isn’t a News Source – Michael Arrington, Techcrunch

(Why is Twitter Unreliable?) The facts are often wrong.

This is the same argument that mainstream journalists used against blogs when they rose to fill a void in the news over the last few years. Yet even the NY Times admitted years ago that blogs were an important news source when disaster struck: “For vivid reporting from the enormous zone of tsunami disaster, it was hard to beat the blogs.”

But blogs are nothing compared to Twitter, which lets anyone with a cell phone instantly update the world with what they see and hear, via the simple and ubiquitous text message.

Sure, lots of Twitter messages are flat out wrong and can spread disinformation. But as Ingram notes in his blog post above, other people tend to immediately correct those errors. Bad information is quickly drowned out by good information.

CNN provides examples for both sides of the argument with Tweeting the Terror – How Social Media Reacted to Mumbai – remarkable Tweets emanating from the battlefront as well as wayward rumors and noise that questions Twitter information credibility.

Mumbai Attack Aftermath, Detailed Tweet by Tweet – Wired Blog

The simple conclusion is the fact that all citizen journalism – Twitter, cell phone conversations and pictures, Flickr – potentially contribute to the illumination of breaking news. The responders are the first on scene, minutes to hours before the mass media reporters, and news credibility simply requires filtering by both other citizens on scene and the trained media. There’s really no argument here.

In June, I published on my sister site a slideshow explaining how MSM is moving from a content generation business (journalism) to a content distribution business (media by definition).How Mass Media is Embracing Social Media

Opening up Twitter Networks

Now, MSM should develop their Twitter network and show their readers which Twitterers are news generators. The NYT is still won’t link out (follow other newsmakers), but the SF Chronicle does: