According to Gawker, the troubled news organization has chosen Jennifer Preston (@NYT_JenPreston), formerly editor of NYT's Regional Section, to be the lead on NYT's social media affairs.
A leaked internal email, which we found via VentureBeat, goes on to talk about the power of Twitter, YouTube, Digg, etc. and how being comfortable with these tools is essential to success in an increasingly-digital world. From the letter:
"Think of Twitter. Did you know that The New York Times is No. 2 on the Twitterholic.com Top 100 Twitterholics based on Followers? (Behind Ashton Kutcher but ahead of Ellen DeGeneres.) Don’t care? OK, but the point is that an awful lot of people are finding our work not by coming to our homepage or looking at our newspaper but through alerts and recommendations from their friends and colleagues. So we ought to learn how to reach those people effectively and serve them well. At the same time, more of us are using social networks to find sources, contacts and information."
While the NYT hit the nail on the head about the power of social media, we still wonder if a social media editor is actually necessary. The New York Times has some great writers, editors, and bloggers that already seem to have the social media expertise to steer the newspaper in the right direction (i.e. @brianstelter). Consolidating social strategy and having one person direct operations could help, but only if he or she is socially savvy and open to feedback and new connections. To be honest, it didn't help that Jennifer Preston protected her Twitter updates until after the news broke.
