Here in Indianapolis, we recently experienced one of the worst tragedies we have seen in years: the scaffolding collapsing on a crowd at the Indiana State Fair waiting to see country duo Sugarland. Six people have now died with many more injured and recovering.

David Lindquist, longtime music reporter at the Indianapolis Star, was on hand covering the concert for the paper, but quickly became witness to this disaster and found Twitter allowed him to report the story in real time to his followers, which grew from 2500 to 4000 in the ensuing days.

In an article today in the Indianapolis Star, Lindquist, @317lindquist on Twitter, recounted his experience and how he attempted to report on the tragedy live as it unfolded in front of him. His first tweet: “”Tragedy at fair concert. Entire stage collapses on track.” He was able to interview a few people at the event, including a videographer on tour with Sugarland, quoted as saying “This is as bad as it gets” — which served as the front page headline for the paper the next day.

Lindquist used his phone to report back to the paper, all the while tweeting what he saw and what he heard.

I’ve heard my friend and founder of TheDigitel, Ken Hawkins, who formerly worked at the daily paper the Charleston Post & Courier, say he felt social media would turn the average Joes into the witnesses and the information gatherers of news, a job formerly done by reporters, while journalists would become those who provide the context for that information, helping it make sense to readers and viewers. However, here, Lindquist found himself in the role of man on the ground and context provider.

In addition to reporting the story, he too became “the story” with countless media interviewing him about what he witnessed that night. He made appearances on “The Today Show” and “Entertainment Tonight” to tell his story.

What strikes me here is the powerful way this journalist was able to use social media to its fullest effect to get out information not as just a witness, but as a journalist trained to capture details, verify information and translate that into an understandable story to the public.

Without Twitter, we would have heard that story live on TV, some hour and a half after the event occurred, without the trained firsthand account he was able to provide. I was watching TV that night, and this was how long it took for them to report the story. The CNN email News Alert came at 10:13 p.m.; Lindquist’s first tweet above was at 8:54 p.m. Or we would have read about it next day when Lindquist was able to write a more finely crafted story of the night’s events.

Thanks to David and to Twitter for providing us reliable reporting and a vehicle to share the information immediately. While this is a case where Twitter is being used for good, it also reminds me how we’ve seen recently people using the tool to organize criminal activity and other inappropriate actions. Unfortunately, though, that is their right. Just as with free speech, we can say what we want, but we hope the best thoughts and actions rise to the top just like the admirable reporting the night of Aug. 13.

In honor of the Wall Street Journal being one of only two newspapers across the country to see a rise in circulation per the latest numbers that came out today, here is my “ode to the Wall Street Journal” as my weekly TwitterMoms.com blog post.

It’s one of my favorite traditional media outlets and a part of my daily life that I couldn’t imagine going without! Find out 5 reasons why I love “the Journal”.

Recently, I’ve come across several Web sites which are doing a great job of offering up news in a way that’s compelling and smartly engages social media as part of the experience. None is associated with a traditional media outlet, and sadly, I think they had to come along because traditional media wasn’t getting the job done online.

One is TheDigitel, a site that is local to Charleston, and produces its own content, as well as highlighting the best of news from other sources across the area. They describe themselves as “a Web outlet that ‘gets it,’ [that] provides the Web integration and savviness that is demanded by young adults who grew up during the Internet revolution.”

TheDigitel.com strives to have good relationships with local media outlets. “We know that only through working together on the local level can we achieve the goal that we’ve set for ourselves: a comprehensive view of the community for everyone,” they say.

I had the privilege of meeting the founders Ken Hawkins and Chris Gigante at an event I helped organize for the Charleston Parks Conservancy and these are smart guys who I think have done something the Post & Courier should have along time ago. If traditional media don’t “get it” soon, they’re done for in the not too distant future, I fear.

Here’s what TheDigitel does right:

• Focuses completely on local content and on doing it right
• Has multimedia components; shoot their own video or use others’ video when appropriate
• Has a most popular stories category
• Allows you to search by topic and location
• Provides links to related coverage at other media outlets — TV, newspapers, radio, etc — and related stories on their site, making it a true resource for ALL Charleston news
• Allows for comments
• Very clean site, easy to read

What else it could do:

• Offer ability to share articles on popular social media sites with one click
• Allow others to embed video so long as it credits TheDigitel
• Add RSS feeds by topic

This is a fairly new site, however, and I’m betting these things are in the works.

Now, let’s compare to the Charleston Post & Courier site, the local paper of Charleston, S.C. Here’s what the Post & Courier does right:

• Ability to share stories on social media sites with one click
• Ability to post comments
• Starting to include some video with stories
• Offers some RSS feeds
• Offer some audio clips

Here’s what else it needs to do:

• Unclutter the pages; very distracting and difficult to read
• Add reporter blogs
• Improve search function; very clunky right now

In looking at these two lists, it appears the Post & Courier is not too far off TheDigitel, but visit the two sites and I think you’ll see the difference. I believe the key here is for traditional media to incorporate social media in a way that is unintrusive and helps organize the news experience instead of adding to the clutter. TheDigitel gets this right.

Any other suggestions out there for how traditional media can “digitize” itself into maintaining an existence?

My local paper, the Charleston Post & Courier, recently underwent a total rework, which I suspect is an effort to adapt to the growing numbers of readers who are going online for their news.

The paper made a number of changes, which I’ll discuss below:
1) Narrower paper – I don’t know this for a fact, but I suspect this is to save $$ as ad dollars increasingly decline with more advertisers spending online.
2) Charleston.net is on the top center of EVERY page – This of course is to drive folks to their Web site (which still needs a fair amount of help in my opinion).
3) Increased focus on local news – The paper beefed up its local news coverage with a new tabloid-style section. This is something many local papers are focusing on. Local news one thing they can provide to the reader that they can’t get as well online yet. The Post & Courier also competes with smaller community papers in the area and they also added a Police Blotter section in this new tabloid, which is a popular read in a competing community paper.

Previously, the paper added a Friday 5 section, which works very closely with the Web site with a corresponding blog. Each week they detail lists of 5, such as the top 5 things to do over the weekend, and these lists often relate to technology and social media.

The site has also launched a citizen journalism component called Your Report where readers can upload their own videos, photos and news happening around them. This is an effort to join the Web 2.0 revolution where folks don’t just take information from the Internet, but want to contribute to the conversation, as well.

It’s very interesting to see how newspapers work hard to adapt to this changing environment in order to stay alive. I, for one, don’t feel like online news can ever replace my local paper, but that might be a different story for Generation Y, who has grown up comfortable with getting most, if not all, of their information online. Good luck Post & Courier!

Last week the Audit Bureau of Circulation released its latest statistics on the health of newspapers across the country. Unfortunately, like the report from last fall (which posted declines of 2.6%), the circulation numbers are not good and continue to decline.

The report found that the paid weekday circulation of some 530 newspapers across the U.S. fell 3.6%, with only two publications in the Top 25 — USA Today and the Wall Street Journal (have I ever mentioned that’s my favorite paper ?) — posting gains.

Biggies like the New York Times fell 3.9%, and the Los Angeles Times fell a staggering 5.1%.

Just today, I read where the Myrtle Beach Sun Times and the Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader offered employees buyouts. Newsweek did the same a few weeks ago, and Time also recently let go some 100 employees. I also had a conversation recently with an editor at the Charleston (SC) Post & Courier who noted they currently had a part-time employee filling a previously full-time position with no plans to change that and that they were generally short-staffed.

Whenever I’m out speaking about why companies should engage Web 2.0 tools, I always list the declining impact of traditional media as a reason. Fewer and fewer people are paying attention. And I’m always asked: Do you think newspapers will cease to exist?

No, not any time soon. There is still a place for a hand-held paper amongst my generation and older; however, traditional media is going to have to readjust and find its place in the new Internet-driven world. It is not so different from when TV news came to the forefront and afternoon papers went under. They have to adjust and they are working hard to extend their Internet presence and meet readers where they want their news. It will be interesting to see how the chips fall.

What do you think? Will newspapers be a thing of the past?

Last week, the New York Time announced it would discontinue its paid subscription service, TimeSelect, following most other newspapers in the country. Sadly traditional media, like newspapers, are suffering declining readership due to the Web and many are struggling to adapt to the changing ways people are getting their news.

By opening up its content, the New York Times is opening the doors to many new readers, which likely will serve the famous paper well. With so many more viewers reading, emailing articles, blogging about the stories of the day, Digging their content and more, their reputation is likley to improve among those who find their news on the Web.

Free content will also give them better search engine visibility and many more potential advertisers and ad dollars thanks to a growing number of unique visitors to their sites. All in all I think it’s a smart move for the Times.

Now, if my very favorite paper, the Wall Street Journal, would just follow suit… They seem to be one of the last hold outs on the paid online subscription service, though a recent Wall Street Journal article stated that Rupert Murdoch is considering a move toward free content. Here’s hoping, so the world can access its insightful articles!