According to the Greenslade Blog in The Guardian, journalists who work for the Miami Herald are not happy with the newspaper's "promiscuous use of tweets in its print edition stories."

So far, 23 staff members have signed a complaint and put it on the newsroom's memo board about others over-use and mis-use of Twitter.

For example, last month, there was a story about a 15-year-old girl and her mother, who were killed by the daughter's older boyfriend. The story included a quote from Twitter, which said, "there was absolutely nothing good that could have possibly come from this relationship."

The comment was added at the suggestion of an editor to show the story was gaining online interest. However, Greenslade said "including the quote in the final story meant leaving out quotes from people who were close to the tragedy."

Also in the posted complaint was the fact that Twitter comments were added into a story about 9/11. The comments are where the people were that day, such as in the kitchen, coming back from working out or sleeping. "Is this any reason why our dwindling pool of readers would care about any of this?" the staff stated.

They also think the newspaper is becoming a sort of "flea market" where the articles have no news value at all and that they do not recognize their own newspaper anymore. "Local news does not have to be shallow and cheesy. The readers who still buy our product aren't buying it because they care what 'Gordon Geck' has to say," the staff members proclaimed. They said the readers of the newspaper care about more important issues, such as the current state of the city and county governments.

Ryan Derousseau, in an article called "The Miami Herald Staff Compares Newspaper to a Flea Market" on MediaBistro.com said that the debate might decrease if the newspaper picked quotes from Twitter that "provide a sharp opinion and witty analysis. It also makes the addition on the front page a little easier to swallow."

Should newspaper put Twitter comments in stories and what kinds of comments should be added? Where should the line of relevance be drawn? These are important questions since media is currently in the digital age.

Source: Greenslade Blog, MediaBistro