Sara Ganim, who received a Pulitzer prize for her dogged coverage of the Penn State sex abuse scandal, says Twitter has been a "great way to stay connected with readers" as the story unfolds.
Ganim, who broke the story, spent an hour dissecting the ongoing case against coach Jerry Sandusky in an online chat with readers at Penn Live. She won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting.
In answer to how readers' reactions changed throughout the last three years of her coverage and whether those reactions informed her reporting, Ganim, 24, gave a shout-out to Twitter that should give pause to journalists who dismiss it as a waste of time.
"Twitter has been a great way for me to stay connected with readers," said Ganim, who has more than 15,000 Twitter followers. "Of course, I try my best to respond to reader comments and take into consideration what people are thinking. It's interesting that we get criticized for being both too harsh on Penn State and too lenient. I guess that means we're somewhere in the middle--which is right where we want to be."
You can read the full chat transcript here.
How do you use Twitter or other social media to connect with your audience?