WebProNews

Jennifer Preston is a serious journalist.  She serves an adjunct instructor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and has been employed by the New York Times for almost 14 years.  So the Times seems to be placing quite a bit of importance on Web 2.0 as Preston has been made its "Social Media Editor."

Preston is the first person at the paper to hold the title, and fittingly enough, introduced herself using Twitter.  At this point, she's following 152 people and is being followed by a total of 1,142 folks.

 

Preston may not be aiming to be a power user with a huge audience, then.  Instead, a question she posed in her introductory tweet pointed towards what direction the position may take: "How should @nytimes be using Twitter?"

Thanks to Preston (and how people respond), we could see a whole lot of New York Times writers signing up for Twitter accounts and sending out their thoughts in 140-character chunks.  Or taking into account what Twitter users have to say as they compose articles.  LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace accounts might enter the equation, too.

Regardless, it looks like the Gray Lady is giving social media its due.