It would be impossible to touch upon the many ways in which different media outlets are covering the tragedy unfolding in Haiti after this week’s earthquake. But while some outlets, like The New York Post, are back to business as usual as the situation in the Caribbean continues to unfold, other outlets are doing excellent, around the clock work and adding innovative social media projects as well.

As the quake rocked Haiti earlier this week, networks and news nets packed up reporters and shipped them to the tiny island nation as quickly as they could. CNN’s Anderson Cooper, NBC’s Ann Curry and Brian Williams, ABC’s Diane Sawyer, CBS’s Katie Couric and Fox News’ Steve Harrigan and Bill Hemmer were among the reporters on the ground. But not all coverage was equal. Today, James Rainey praised CNN in the Los Angeles Times, while criticizing Fox News for not giving the breaking news more air time:

“CNN’s determination to stick with the news stands in stark contrast to its competitors, particularly Fox News, that in prime time have increasingly been committed to building their brands with political commentary over straight reporting.”

In newspapers, we’ve seen some superb coverage from The New York Times, including a large, gut-wrenching photo on today’s front page. The paper’s Web site is filled with photos and videos from the epicenter of the destruction, and its staff has established a site where people can submit photos of missing loved ones. The Times has also created a Facebook page dedicated to news and information of the earthquake and its recovery.

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MediaPost‘s Maryanne Conlin wrote a post today about crowdsourcing, a technique employed by corporations that costs them less than it would to hire outside consultants. By calling on a green blog/mom community to help develop a non-profit project, Conlin claims “When they get passionate about something, they can compete with the best of social media marketers by creating and executing strategies that work to advance their wants and needs.”

But is it ethical?

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The Huffington Post is launching its Game Changers awards — “100 people who are using new media to reshape their fields and change the world.”

Making the awards democratic, Arianna Huffington is asking for your submissions for “game changers” in 10 categories: Politics, Entertainment, Technology, Media, Sports, Business, Style, Health, Green, Philanthropy & Service.

Of course, we’re most concerned with your thoughts on media’s game changers. Certainly Huffington herself belongs in the category, and we’d make cases for members of The New York Times digital newsroom, ProPublica and people like Andy Carvin who are helping NPR harness the power of citizen journalism with new media tools like Twitter. And what about people like Matt Drudge and Perez Hilton?

Here’s a fun summer Friday game: who would you nominate as new media game changers in media?

Newspapers are dying, magazines are closing and more journalists are finding themselves without paying gigs every day. Everyone is wondering: what does the future hold for the media? We brought the questions to the front lines, asking leaders in the field to tell us: what’s next?

We have discussed citizen journalism in this space before, but there is no denying the important role that social media and public involvement will play in the future of journalism. Andy Carvin, NPR‘s senior strategist for social media, has been working for the past few years to incorporate NPR’s listeners’ input into the public radio organization’s reporting. We asked him how he makes it work, and what he’s working on.

FishbowlNY: What do you do at NPR?

Andy Carvin: Part of my role is to come up with ways to have the public add to our shows. I very much come from the perspective that the community at large knows more about any given topic than any one reporter or organization does. Tapping into the community has been a great way to expand our coverage. For example, during the presidential debates we challenged listeners to find anything they thought sounded fishy and, if they could find any primary sources to prove their point, send it to us.

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During the afternoon session at the Personal Democracy Forum today, we sat in on one panel about citizen journalism and another focused on organizing and fundraising using Twitter.

The first panel of the afternoon was moderated by The Nation‘s Ari Melber and featured social media experts Amanda Michel of ProPublica.org, NPR‘s Andy Carvin, Twittervision’s Dave Troy and Andrew Turner of GeoCommons.

The panel discussed using crowd sourcing and citizen journalists to report and develop stories. These tools were the key to covering stories like the 2008 election cycle and the inauguration festivities. The group talked about why citizens want to get involved, deciding that involvement can be attributed to many different factors, from political motivation, curiosity or just to check where tax dollars are being spent.

“Sometimes imminent danger motivates people,” Carvin said, adding that more than 500 people volunteered to report news and information for NPR in the days leading up to Hurrican Gustav’s landing last year.”But I can’t get people on board a hurricane project for this year until there is a storm about to hit.”

Michel, who worked for the Huffington Post‘s Off the Bus project during the election last year, said that although she needs to check information from politically motivated sources carefully, sometimes they make the best sources.

“It needs to be an issue they care about — either they or their friends or family is involved — something there to pull them in,” agreed Turner. “They are not going to get involved just because it’s in front of them.”

(Photo: Melber, Turner, Michel, Troy and Carvin talk citizen journalism)

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From left: NPR’s Andy Carvin juggles devices for Twittering from the stage last night while addressing social media for journalists with fellow panelists Shirley Brady of BusinessWeek.com, PressThink’s Jay Rosen, and Rachel Sklar of Abrams Research and The Daily Beast.

Armed with Blackberries, cameras, and computers, the Twitterati and those seeking to break in flocked to last night’s Journalism and Social Media Panel at Tribeca Cinemas. Media types in the audience at the mediabistro.com-hosted event listened to journalists discuss that 140-character wonder of new media, Twitter. An informal audience poll showed that most were familiar with the microblogging platform, while nearly half were registered on the site. The event’s golden child remained at the heart of the conversation as panelists explored its current uses and its future practices. “Twitter is really the conversation that never ends,” said Andy Carvin (@acarvin)of NPR, who like fellow panelist Rachel Sklar (@rachelsklar) of Abrams Research and The Daily Beast, even managed to Twitter from the stage while discussing the medium.

The conversation kicked off with PressThink’s Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) citing Marx’s definition of revolution in reference to social media: “The means of production have changed hands in publication… It’s an open source revolution,” he said. Continuing the metaphor, Sklar quipped, “Sometimes revolutions swing a little too far,” and the panel concurred, citing mob mentality and a lack of respect for production as some social media trouble spots.

Echoing the question reverberating around conference tables across the country, the evening’s big x-factor was how to monetize the social media mechanism to bring in cash. Originally directed at Rosen, the question engendered a delayed response. His silence made people brace themselves for his answer. “Well, this is the question people ask,” he joked, to uncomfortable audience laughter. Collectively, the panel agreed that it envisioned more possibilities than disappointments in a new world of news fueled by social media.

More social media insights and video from the event, after the jump…

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