Either way, it’s about time we got over ourselves as some institution of capital-J Journalism and responded to readers in the comments sections of our sites, engaged with them on Twitter and answered their questions on Facebook.

As Robert Quigley at Old Media New Tricks writes, “People seem to think we’re a giant, uncaring media corporation. They’re pleasantly surprised when they get a real human response.”

For the sake of argument though, what’s the justification for maintaining a wall of silence? Why should we not respond to reader questions and concerns? Anyone?

Rather than arguing about whether Twitter is or isn’t journalism, we should shift the conversation to understanding the journalism taking place on this platform and its relationship to established journalism norms and practices.

The problem that I’ve seen is that journalists try to categorize Twitter as one thing, but that’s like trying to categorize all magazines as one thing, like lumping Teen Beat with the Economist. Media aren’t flat and easy to summarize; they are faceted and full of niches where many interests (and products) take hold.

Instead, Outing says the report is aimed at nonprofits and foundations, which the report says will play an important role in rebuilding American journalism.

The most interesting part of his post comes from Outing’s response to a reader in the comments section, though. The crisis facing the news industry isn’t getting much sympathy from the public, he writes, because journalists are held in such low esteem.

Media is held in low esteem currently (thanks, especially, cable TV news!), so investigative reporting units being scrapped and reporters losing jobs isn’t exactly resonating. It’s mostly the media geeks, journalism academics, and a few informed media outsiders who care about the issue.

Hear that? Journalists can cry all we want about the fact that our business models are crumbling beneath the weight of the Internet, but the people don’t care. They think we’re liars, cheats, sensationalists, biased and — in most cases — hopelessly liberal.

Outing suggests that more public outreach is needed, rather than reports that will be read mainly by “media geeks” and insiders. (Read his comment for his specific ideas.) I agree, and I think a good way to reach the public is through transparency.

What I mean by that is publishing our budgets and agendas so that the readers can have an idea what we’re working on. I mean addressing charges of bias and prejudice directly, explaining the journalistic situations that led to the stories as they appeared in print or online. I mean showing people how we work and letting them make suggestions and contributions to that process, while learning from what we provide.

When people understand more about how we produce the news, they will appreciate it more. Hell, maybe they’ll even see that something about that process produces a product that’s worth paying for.

It’s on journalists and news organizations to make it possible for the news to find its audience, which means that journalists need to do more than just dabble in social media, Chen writes. They become leaders in using the technology.

The point of using social media isn’t that Facebook is popular and lots of people, particularly young people, hang out there. The point is the way people find the news today is they expect it to find them. If news organizations want to be valuable to their readers’, they not only need great content and interactive features, they need to to use these features. To me, what that means for news organizations is their staffs need to understand social media better than the readers, so they can lead, rather than follow.

On the importance of objectivity and transparency:

Objectivity, he then pointed out, had always been an idea important for the news. For him it was once designed to deliver journalism that people can trust. But in the new media age transparency is what delivers trust. He stressed that news today still has to be accurate and fair, but it is as important for the readers, listeners and viewers to see how the news is produced, where the information comes from, and how it works. The emergence of news is as important, as the delivering of the news itself.

Then on the relationship between Twitter and journalism, and between journalists and the Web in general:

You get a lot of things, when you open up Twitter in the morning, but not journalism. Journalism needs discipline, analysis, explanation and context, he pointed out, and therefore for him it is still a profession. The value that gets added with journalism is judgment, analysis and explanation – and that makes the difference. So journalism will stay – he was optimistic about that. However, journalists must understand one rule: if you believe you are in competition with the internet, find your way out. Collaboration, openness and link culture are rules, you can’t deny at the moment, he said.