Image by comicbase via Flickr

This month’s Carnival of Journalism tackles takes its cue from the historic change in the US, asking what can newspapers – or more accurately, the news media – learn from the Obama campaign.

Others have already addressed how Obama’s team used Web 2.0 technologies or have discussed the campaign’s mobile strategy.

The use of the technology shows how this campaign was run by a team at ease with the world of the web, and here lies one of the key lessons for journalism.

For Obama’s campaign, the web wasn’t an add-on. Instead here was a campaign that understood the digital world and was part of it. YouTube wasn’t an after-thought but part of a strategy.

The question is how many journalists who see new media tools as an integral part of their work. This goes beyond just using the technology. After all, anyone can upload a video to YouTube or send a tweet.

This is about having a digital mindset that understands the potential, and limitations, of digital technologies in journalism.

Look at the Obama camp. The president-elect is seemingly addicted to his Blackberry. More startling is that he may be the first president to have a laptop on his desk in the Oval Office. This indicates how technology is just part of his daily routines and the way he does business.

Sometimes the way legacy media adopts new technologies reveals the gulf between journalists and the tools.

This weekend, Vancouver went to the polls to elect a new mayor and city council.

CBC Vancouver ran a TV special on the results in which they highlighted what people were saying on Twitter. So far, so good.

But when CBC ran the tweets on-screen, it failed to name who said this. Instead, Twitter was given as the source for the tweet.

Similarly on the CBC website, people were encouraged to share their thoughts on the election on Twitter. But instead of pulling in the tweets onto the CBC site as an RSS feed, people have to go to Twitter Search.

CBC Vancouver should be commended for trying to tap into the thoughts on Twitter about the civic vote. But the way it did this reveals a lack of understanding about social media tools.

Too often journalists are peering into the social media world, parachuting in to take what they want and then leaving, rather than being part of this world and engaging with it.