New Social Media Editor for the "New York Times," Jennifer Preston.
I’ve seen a number of recent blog posts about the New York Times. Social media they say? Matt Kapko first caught my attention with his post on iMediaConnection announcing the hire of Jennifer Preston as the first Social Media Editor at the Times. And again, I spotted two additional blog posts, one by Ben Parr and one by Hamilton Nolan, discussing the new hire. Both referenced the staff change as being a weak move on the part of the New York Times because the position wasn’t well defined for Jennifer Preston. However, this newly filled role by Preston might just be what The Times needs.
Preston will focus full-time on social media networks and online publishing platforms in an effort to reach more readers. In her new role, she hopes to reach out to those readers that The Times would not normally be able to access through traditional means of print and web presence and begin to tackle the new found popularity that the New York Times has received through social media, especially Twitter.
Whether or not Preston turns out to be the best person for the job, the new position was a much needed role within The New York Times to stretch across the broad horizon of social media and help place the falling trend of newspapers back on the map with social media. If successful, I think we can expect to see other newspapers to follow suit in the future.
**The New York Times is now listed as no. 14 on Twitterholic.com ‘s list of top 100 Twitterholics based on followers. You can follow the New York Times on Twitter @NYTimes and Jennifer Preston, New York Times Social Media Editor, @NYT_JenPreston.
Raven L. Everidge, is an intern at Wicked PR. She is a 2nd year Graduate student at Auburn University in the Department of Communication and Journalism, specializing in Public Relations. She completed her Undergraduate degree at Samford University in Journalism and Mass Communication with an emphasis in Public Relations in May 2007. Follow her on Twitter @Raveve.
