Time for short takes — my best bets from surfing the blogosphere:

Community-directed reporting: Daniel Victor, of the Harrisburg Patriot-News, is experimenting with using readers as assigning editors of sorts: He’ll  solicit story ideas from readers as blog comments, and then let other readers vote on which stories he’ll pursue next. It’s a novel idea, and there’s much I like about it. The best ideas come from readers. I’m not knocking editors, but I think it’s too easy for an editor to mistake “what the reader wants” with “what I want.” I’m eager to hear how Victor’s project turns out.

More Twitter support: All you naysayers who bashed Twitter as a useless waste of time with no “utility” for newspapers, you best eat your words. Pew Research Center found in December that 11 percent of Americans who are online say they use Twitter or a similar service, which is notable as Twitter just started in 2006. (Just imagine how many might be on it a year from now?) And usage is greatest among the age group advertisers covet: Twenty percent of the online adults ages 25 to 34 are on Twitter, Pew found.  So if you’re not on Twitter, get on it. Now. And use it. Don’t just talk about reaching young readers. Reach them.

Blog traffic: Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, Twitter. Do these help you grow traffic? Are they worth the effort? And if so, how do you use them? If you’ve asked these questions, The Future Buzz offers a case study that explains which sites worked best and which produced temporary traffic spikes with little permanent gain. It’s worth a read.

Newspapers are just like railroads: Martin Langeveld at Harvard’s  Nieman Journalism Lab reflects on the declared bankruptcy of four major newspapers and  and compares the news industry’s decline to what happened to railroads. He suggests some ways newspapers can “emerge from this recession with a structure that can enable a thriving news industry”: consolidate — at the corporate and city and regional levels; accelerate a move to online-first operations; merge or consolidate with other media.

No, wait. Newspapers are just like libraries: R. David Lankes, an associate professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, offers an impassioned blog post at Virtual Dave about how to save libraries that I found so inspiring, I wanted to mention it here. Lankes and I are friends, and we’ve chatted (by e-mail) about the similarities between the struggling industries we both respectively care about. They both relate to reading and technology; they both are mired as the dinosaurs in the field face up against the innovators. I think his message of hope is relevant for all of us trying to change journalism who feel frustrated by those in our industry who refuse to budge. His best takeaway:  “How do I get inspired to face (intransigence), or laziness, or ineptitude? I look right past them at the real goal, and those who really need me. Block me, and I will go around you. Build a wall, and I will build a door. Lock the door, and I will break a window.”

Hope you’re feeling pepped up. Carry on.

– Gina

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about exactly what an online-first newsroom is. And I’ve come up with six points, although I don’t think that tells the whole story. So I sense another series coming on.

In today’s post, I’ll discuss six attributes that form the foundation of an online-first newsroom.  Next post, I’ll get more detailed about the specifics.

And I’ll warn you that my sense of an online-first newsroom is evolving. This post is what I think at this very instant. Next week, next month, next year, my sense of an online-first newsroom likely will be different.

That’s not flip-flopping; that’s learning. I think we need to keep an open mind as newspapers reinvent themselves. So please share your ideas and help me evolve.

Six attributes of an online-first newsroom:

Immediate: Newspapers have struggled for decades with the idea that they have the story, but they can’t tell it until the next morning (or afternoon.) So now we have the Web. Use it. Don’t wait. Don’t post on your blog “after you write your story.” Don’t drive back to the newsroom even. Use Twitter to break news as it happens and follow up with an immediate blog post, streaming live video or audio.

On multiple platforms: Don’t have most of your staff just writing for print  and a small pool of crazies blogging, social networking and using multi-media. Jackie Hai at Convergence Commons has a great list of what journalists-in-training need to know to be prepared for the job market. Do existing journalists need to know all of these, including how to podcast and edit a video and create a slide show. Someone or several people at the paper need to know, and eventually, perhaps, everyone. But don’t wait to use tools until everyone is trained. Start using them with the early innovators. Let them experiment and bring back what they learn to the rest.

Connected: Readers can’t be those annoying people who call us with dumb story ideas or to complain that they were misquoted. We need to adjust our attitude and see them not just as the customer, but as the keepers of the network we want to be part of. Instead of selling them a product, we should be selling relationships. Mikael Zackrisson at Natet puts it very well: “The readers want to be part of the meeting place we create for them under our brand, no matter if it´s in print, on the web or in a physical meeting. The advertisers want to be part of that relationship; they want a place by the fireside where the interesting stories get told.”

Interactive: Every print story should have a Web element that’s meaningful, not just thrown in because, “you, know, we need that Web thing.” Every reporter should be blogging, responding to comments on their blogs and commenting on other blogs in their niche. Every reporter should be engaged in social networking, sites such as Facebook. Every reporter should be tweeting. Journalists should be connecting with readers in every way they can think of, including e-newsletters, face-to-face chats, guest posts.

Curatorial: Our job is no longer reporting the news. It  becomes aggregating, making meaningful, providing context, explaining, grouping together, updating, all the type of things that a museum curator does as Mindy McAdams explains on Teaching Online Journalism. Or, if you prefer, think of our job as a DJ, who selects from millions of tunes which ones to spin to keep the party-goers dancing. Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine used that term in a post last year, citing a French blogger’s idea.

Crowdsourced: What’s that? The Knight Digital Media Center defines it as the “use of a large group of readers to report a news story.” The center’s blog offers some informative examples, such as allowing a reader-driven database of theme park accidents people had witnessed. I’d extend the definition beyond that to include letting readers blog on newspaper Web sites and letting those bloggers cover certain types of stories.  I also think crowdsourcing includes reporters culling tips from blog comments and following up on them. The concept of crowdsourcing rankles many a traditional journalist because “Oh, my, how will we know if it’s true?” Well, the way I see it, you use citizen journalists for projects that make sense, you train them and you present the story or compilation for what it is, culled by readers.  Then you relax and realize that journalism really isn’t rocket science after all. Daniel Victor offers an insightful defense of crowdsourcing that includes noting that it saves reporters’ time, engages readers and creates a better product. Who can argue with that?

– Gina