“Four Questions With …” is a monthly series of interviews with different social media and community editors in the news industry.

Photo Credit: Angela Cranford

So, what is it like to be a social media or community editor? What are the job responsibilities and how does one end up landing such a gig? The goal of “Four Questions With …” is to answer some of these questions and to give insight into what is a new and constantly evolving field.

This month, we talked to Brian Ries, the social media editor at Newsweek & The Daily Beast. Unlike some other social media editors, Ries didn’t start out in journalism. He started his current job in August 2010 after working at advertising and marketing companies with a heavy social bent. He began writing for Newsweek The Daily Beast while it was one of his clients. (It merged with Newsweek later.)

Ries further caught the editors’ attention when, in July 2010, he reported a Facebook post by Sarah Palin on the Ground Zero mosque as hate speech. His resulting Tumblr post went viral and Facebook even took down Palin’s post. He ended up writing an article about it for the site.

Here are his thoughts on what skills a social media editor needs and how you can make your mark in a newsroom with an already established social media strategy. Read more

When it comes to blogging platform Tumblr, Newsweek has always led the pack. The news magazine is at it again — this time posting six alternative, although ultimately rejected, versions of its mildly controversial “First Gay President” cover on its Tumblr.

The picture that made the cut for the May 21 issue shows President Barack Obama with a rainbow-hued halo above his head (shown to the right). On the bottom left are printed the words “The First Gay President.”

In the Tumblr post, Brian Ries, Newsweek‘s current social media editor, writes, “Ah, our favorite nwktumblr feature is back: the also-rans! These are the alternate versions of our ’First Gay President’ Newsweek cover that were left on the cutting room floor.”

See all six rejected covers after the jump.

Read more

It came seemingly out of nowhere. Pinterest, a social network where users can create virtual pinboards, quietly transformed throughout 2011 from a niche interest site to a top 10 social network, all while still functioning under an “invite only” model. With solid growth like that, it’s hard not to take notice. The site is more easily geared towards retailers, but journalists and news organizations are beginning to experiment with ways they can tap into the Pinterest market. Here are five of the news organizations you should be following on Pinterest.

Read more

Are you struggling with content strategy? Are you figuring out how best to use Twitter for your business goals? Discover how to use social media tools and create effective content strategies to build your fans quickly and increase your business at the Social Media Marketing Boot Camp!

This intensive eight-week online conference and workshop series will feature practical how-to sessions, peer interaction with your fellow campmates, and keynote speeches from some of the top social media innovators like David Meerman Scott (Real-Time Marketing & PR), Justin Smith (Inside Network), Lauren Dugan (AllTwitter), Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project), and Jessica Bennett, senior writer and editor at Newsweek and The Daily Beast.

Gretchen Rubin will discuss the multimedia strategy behind her best-selling book The Happiness Project, which to date has over 40,000 “Likes” on Facebook and over half a million YouTube views. Jessica Bennett, who produces video, multimedia, and photo projects with Newsweek and The Daily Beast, will demonstrate the basics of Tumblr, share best practices she’s learned as the overseer of Newsweek‘s Tumblr, and show you how to use the platform to grow and promote your business.

Attendees will receive focused, individual attention from the class leaders in small peer groups, and will walk away from the knowledge to create comprehensive social media marketing strategies across various sites and platforms. The Social Media Marketing Boot Camp runs from September 13 – November 1. Register before August 23 and save $100!

Visit the Social Media Marketing Boot Camp page for information on the program, speakers, and more.

by Ethan Klapper

More and more news organizations are using Tumblr to share content, with each taking a different approach to using the popular microblogging service.

Some, like NPR, use Tumblr strictly to link to their own content. Others like Newsweek, use Tumblr to curate the entire Web.

Here’s a look at how some news sites use Tumblr.

Newsweek

Newsweek was one of the first news organizations to use Tumblr. Tumblr itself hired Mark Coatney — who created and ran Newsweek’s Tumblr – over the summer as its media evangelist.

Newsweek’s tumblog features a potpourri of the newsweekly’s content as well as fun (and sometimes random) stuff found across the Web.

NPR

At the other end of the Tumblr spectrum is NPR, which features a much simpler theme. But the most striking difference, compared to Newsweek, is how NPR uses Tumblr: As an internal curation engine.

Followers of NPR’s Tumblr are treated to the picks of the editors on NPR’s social media desk. The public radio giant uses Tumblr to feature more offbeat stories, like a profile on a landscape astrophotographer and astronomy journalist.

Interestingly, NPR does not embed any audio on its tumblog (a feature supported by Tumblr). However, NPR does embed YouTube videos.

Evening News Shows

Both “NBC Nightly News” and ABC’s “World News” have tumblogs. Despite the intense competition between these two shows (read more at our sister blog TVNewser), both shows see eye-to-eye on a core element of their Tumblr strategies: Link aggregation.

Both tumblogs do morning link aggregation posts. For “Nightly,” that could very well be the only post of the day. Other posts deal mainly with the show, or NBC News.

The “World News” tumblog is far more active, posting and reblogging from sources as varied as the Huffington Post, Comedy Central and even msnbc.com.

Washington Post Style section

It's Mark S. Luckie, the founder of 10,000 Words!

Not many newspapers are on Tumblr. The New York Times has been “Coming soon!” since June 24. The Washington Post looks like it is not beyond the domain squatting stage.

But The Post’s Style section does have a Tumblr, and it does not disappoint. A cool, regular feature is the posting up of page proofs.

While the tumblog is heavy on internal promotion, a nice mix of offbeat posts are featured as well, including YouTube videos of “Sesame Street” and Don Draper, of “Madmen.”

The New Yorker

The New Yorker’s popular tumblog is a mix of the aggregation posts seen in the evening news tumblogs and the posts of page proofs that The Washington Post’s Style section posts.

Occasionally, the “To Do List” is posted – a narrated aggregation post that sends readers to news sites around the Web. The magazine’s new covers — which are literal works of art — are also posted on the tumblog. Other posts on this tumblog tend to promote content on the magazine’s website.

Other news organization tumblogs to check out

Here are a few other Tumblogs to check out.

• POLITICO
• Huffington Post
• The Atlantic
• Yahoo! News
• Mashable
• Washington Examiner
• “Today” Show
• NBC News
• msnbc.com
• LIFE.com
• NPR “Fresh Air”
• “Nightline”
• Front Pages (newspaper front pages)
• ABC News Radio (note top-level domain)
• The Economist
• Officials Say the Darndest Things, by ProPublica
• Go Mobile (Los Angeles Times)
• BBC’s Katty Kay
• The Detroit News
• Mediaite
• Vancouver Province
• Christian Science Monitor
• Citadel Media
• RT America
• Columbus Dispatch
• Mother Jones
• PRI’s “The World”
• NBC Local
• US News & World Report

UPDATE: Links below The Economist were added post-publication, at the suggestion of commenters, tweeters and e-mailers. Feel free to share with us a tumblog not currently on this list.