Broadening the funding conversation—and not just the spotlight—on local news
#FollowLocalJournalists. That’s the hashtag on a campaign that Twitter is launching today to encourage its users to do just that. According to Sara Fischer, of
Axios, in addition to social-media activity, the campaign is running full-page ads in local papers owned by Gannett (including the
Detroit Free Press and
Miami Herald and
Kansas City Star); the ads will steer readers to Twitter Lists of local reporters that they can follow. “Local journalists are so incredibly important to the conversation on Twitter,” Niketa Patel, head of print and digital news partnerships at the platform, told Fischer. “We’re viewing this as a way of ensuring that Twitter is giving local journalists a national spotlight.”