When the Pulitzer Prize Board announced last year it would emphasize real-time reporting for the Breaking News category starting in 2012, some speculated whether we would someday see a Pulitzer Prize for tweeting. As it turns out, this year’s winner came pretty close.

The prize for Breaking News went to a small newspaper that combined old-fashioned field reporting with a new tool, Twitter, after a tornado devastated swaths of Tuscaloosa, Ala., on April 27, 2011.

Read more: How The Tuscaloosa News’ post-tornado tweeting helped bring home a Pulitzer Prize

pedroelrey:

To survive online, newspapers are seeking a worldwide audience

futurejournalismproject:

Newspapers Look to Targeting, Video to Boost Flagging Revenues

Will newer display formats and better targeting help digital revenues rise faster?

More than nine in 10 US newspapers selling targeted online advertising believed that such ads would take in a greater share of digital revenue over the next year, and nearly as many respondents said the same for video ads. Most respondents, however, also reported that these two tactics represented only a minor portion of their ad sales effort—with more going toward other display and banner advertising or classifieds.

Mobile may also be a new bright spot for the print world. Between Q4 2010 and the same period in 2011, Pew reported, mobile ad revenues climbed to nine times their earlier level as a percentage of total digital revenues.

eMarketer predicts continued growth in online ad spending for US newspapers (including mobile display and search ads), reaching $4.5 billion by 2016. At the same time, the decrease in revenues from print ads will continue to gradually shrink, but still outweigh digital gains. By 2016, the newspaper industry will still be losing about 1% of total ad dollars each year.

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark commissioned a survey of Americans’ trust of news sources. The Washington, D.C.-based polling firm Lincoln Park Strategies conducted the research, which interviewed 1,001 people over the telephone (landlines and cell phones were called). Among the findings:

- Newspapers are the most trusted source of news for most respondents, but that’s not exactly something to crow about: Only 22 percent overall called newspapers “very credible” for reporting on politics and elections; 

- 34 percent of all respondents thought social media had a “negative effect” on the quality of news; 17% thought it had a positive effect;

- Only 6 percent of respondents said being first to report a story was very important to them in choosing a news source, a finding that supports caution in reporting breaking news that before it’s confirmed.

Read More: Newmark study finds newspapers most trusted news source