This post on social media and the future of journalism has been at the top of Mashable for the last day or so – and for good reason. It’s by no means news that we’re in an age of participatory journalism, and have been for some time now – remember how the first anyone heard of the Hudson River plane crash in January 2009 was from Twitter? – but it’s good to have all these guidelines for the “new face of news” in one place.

Here in Lawrence, we’re lucky to have a vibrant, tech-savvy and often opinionated community, people who do a pretty fantastic job of proving Mashable right:

Today, much of the news has become a conversation, and journalists are being required to do as much listening to the community as they broadcast to them. The voices in the community were always there, but were often lost at neighborhood meetings and forums. Now, many of these conversations are taking place online, and journalists will more than ever need to think from the start of their reporting about what conversations need to take place as well as what platforms will foster those conversations…

That’s one of the reasons this blog is here – and a reason why I’m here. I’m very happy to be joining the Lawrence Journal-World and The World Company as social media specialist, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on how we’re doing with social media or how we can do things better. Drop us a comment below – hope to talk with you soon!