Texas newspaper begins printing Twitter, Facebook contacts with each story

Poynter reporting: The Monitor of McAllen, Texas, is turning reporters loose to act like real people on social networks, relaxing traditional concerns about objectivity and formality.

Bylines by local staff writers in The Monitor now include the reporter’s Twitter username.

The paper, with a daily circulation of about 45,000 and a news staff of 42, this week began attaching reporters’ social contact information to every story in the printed edition. Twitter usernames appear next to their bylines, and the end of each story lists how to reach them via Facebook, email and phone.
The obvious goal is to get more people to follow, like or friend the reporters. But that wouldn’t be much help unless the reporters are ready to engage on these platforms. So, Executive Editor Steve Fagan says he is “encouraging reporters to show a little more personality through the social networks than they do normally in print or even online reporting, to make our people a little more human.”
The reforms grew from conversations between management and the publisher about how to strengthen the paper’s social media presence, as its parent company, Freedom Communications, is pushing all its papers to build digital-first strategies.
Fagan also is giving the staff more freedom to express opinions — or at least display some emotion — as they use social networks for reporting and distributing stories. That doesn’t mean there are no boundaries, he said. The newspaper’s publisher this week redistributed copies of the SPJ code of ethics, and the staff is still expected to adhere to “normal guidelines for good-taste reporting,” Fagan said.
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/social-media/152843/texas-newspaper-begins-printing-twitter-facebook-contacts-with-each-story/